A powerful and thought-provoking novel about family, friendship and the risks we take to unravel the truth
When three old friends find themselves back in their hometown, their thoughts inevitably turn to the past. Twenty years ago, Joe was shot dead in the bedroom of his white girlfriend, Aggie. It was deemed an accident, but now Cassie – a journalist – is not so sure. As racial tension ignites a string of violence across their New England city, secrets are revealed, questions mount and suspicions grow. Will the answers that they are so desperate to find cause everyone’s world to shatter?
‘The Same Country unearths long-buried truths that remain the truths of America’ – Gish Jen
‘Complications of race and class make for a deeply compelling novel’ – Margot Livesey
Praise for THE SAME COUNTRY
Carole Burns is an award-winning American writer and journalist living in the U.K. The Same Country is her debut novel.
A freelance writer for the Washington Post’s Book World, Carole was awarded the 2015 John C. Zacharis prize by the U.S. literary magazine Ploughshares for her collection, The Missing Woman and Other Stories. American Book Review described the stories as “a precise, almost clinical look at the emotional landscape of womanhood in the contemporary world.”
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Carole regularly interviews other writers, and her book Off the Page: Writers Talk About Beginnings, Endings, and Everything in Between, published by W.W. Norton, was based on interviews with forty-three authors including Edward P. Jones, Colm Tóibín, Anthony Doerr and Jhumpa Lahiri. She continues interviewing writers both as a journalist and as founder of “Writers in Conversation,” the reading series she runs at the University of Southampton in the UK, where she teaches creative writing as associate professor of English.
Events
Wed 13 September, London: Launch Party at Waterstones Leadenhall Market, 6:30-8:30 pm
Thur 28 September, Winchester: P&G Wells, Reading by Carole then q-and-a with novelist Judith Heneghan, 7 pm
Sat 30 September, Swansea: Talk and signing at Cover to Cover, Mumbles, 2 pm
Thursday 19 October, Pontypridd: Reading with other writers at VoicesOntheBridge, Clwb Y Bont, 7:45 pm.
Thur 2 November, Southampton: October Books, Reading by Carole with q-and-a led by Rebecca Smith, 6:30 pm