‘Varina’ Selected At ReadDavidson Book For 2019

DAVIDSON, NC — Don’t be surprised if you start seeing copies of Charles Frazier’s new novel “Varina” in the hands of neighbors around town. The work of historical fiction, set against the backdrop of the Civil War era of Frazier’s earlier best-selling “Cold Mountain,” has been selected as the Town of Davidson’s book for the 2019 ReadDavidson town-wide reading program.

For the past 12 years, the Town of Davidson, Davidson Public Library and Main Street Books have partnered for the ReadDavidson program, which encourages community-wide reading through educational events related to a selected book.

The events for the 2019 program are scheduled in April, are free to attend and include:

• Wednesday, April 17 — Book discussion, Noon, Davidson Public Library
• Wednesday, April 24 — Book discussion, 7 p.m.,Davidson Public Library
• Sunday, April 28 — Appearance by author Charles Frazier, time and location to be determined

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Interested in joining in with the reading program? Here’s what ReadDavidson says about the book description of “Varina:”

“In his powerful fourth novel, Charles Frazier returns to the time and place of Cold Mountain, vividly bringing to life the chaos and devastation of the Civil War.

With her marriage prospects limited, teenage Varina Howell agrees to wed the much-older widower Jefferson Davis, with whom she expects a life of security as a Mississippi landowner. He instead pursues a career in politics and is eventually appointed president of the Confederacy, placing Varina at the white-hot center of one of the darkest moments in American history—culpable regardless of her intentions.

The Confederacy falling, her marriage in tatters, and the country divided, Varina and her children escape Richmond and travel south on their own, now fugitives with “bounties on their heads, an entire nation in pursuit.”

Intimate in its detailed observations of one woman’s tragic life and epic in its scope and power, Varina is a novel of an American war and its aftermath. Ultimately, the book is a portrait of a woman who comes to realize that complicity carries consequences.”

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