Author Talk: Rebecca Chace, “Talking to the Wolf”

The Cornwall Library is excited to present a talk by Rebecca Chace, author of the haunting and lyrical new novel Talking to the Wolf. She will be in conversation with Franny Taliaferro, former literary critic at the Wall Street Journal.

Four women are steeling themselves for their 35th high school reunion dinner. Lifelong friends, they have seen each other through it all:

…Love, first periods, last periods, bullying mothers, disappeared fathers, crazy sisters, children unborn, found, or gone, parents dying too fast or too slow, this apartment, that apartment, an eyebrow raised across a crowded room…

They are a failed rock star, a celebrated scientist, a work-obsessed misanthrope—and one of them is a deeply grieved ghost, whose untimely death following a friend breakup has ruptured the once-solid quartet. Set in the course of one day running up to the reunion as a surprise snowstorm falls over New York City, and moving amongst the four perspectives, Talking to the Wolf is like a Meg Wolitzer novel shot by filmmaker Nicole Holofcener and blessed by Virginia Woolf. (It pole-vaults over the Bechdel Test.)

Rebecca Chace is an American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and actor. She is the award-winning author of Leaving Rock Harbor, Capture the Flag, Chautauqua Summer, June Sparrow and The Million Dollar Penny (for children).

Her plays include Obit, Beka, 14, Colette, and The Awakening (adaptation from Kate Chopin). She has also written for film and contributed to numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Yale Review, The LA Review, The New England Review, and Lit Hub. Chace has held fellowships at MacDowell, Yaddo, Civitella Ranieri, and others. She is a faculty associate at Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking.

Talking to the Wolf will be available for sale and signing.