BRATTLEBORO — Join author Chuck Collins in conversation with Frida Berrigan as they explore the ethics and evolution of environmental activism through the lens of his novel, Altar to an Erupting Sun, Monday, Aug. 14, at 7 p.m., in the Main Reading Room of Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main St.
The novel's main character, Rae Kelliher, is a veteran environmental activist and pioneer in the death-with-dignity movement. Her husband, Reggie, calls her "party in a box" and "a weaver of people and movements."
Facing a diagnosis of terminal illness, Rae engages in a shocking suicide-murder, taking the life of an oil company CEO for his complicity in delaying responses to climate catastrophe. Seven years later, Rae's friends and family gather at her Vermont farm to try to understand her violent exit and the rapid social transformations triggered by her desperate act.
"I felt such a personal connection to this novel as I traipsed through familiar territory, in both time and terrain, following Rae's experiences and her relationships with the people, both real and fictional, that formed her," said Library Director Starr LaTronica in a news release. "From Guilford and Greenfield to the Book Mill in Montague, through the 1960s to the present, local readers will find many recognizable elements that resonate."
Frida Berrigan is an activist, urban farmer, and columnist who lives in New London, Connecticut, and is the author of It Runs In The Family: On Being Raised By Radicals and Growing Into Rebellious Motherhood. She is the daughter of Philip Berrigan and Elizabeth McAlister and niece of Father Daniel Berrigan S. J., prominent activists against the war in Vietnam.
Guilford resident Chuck Collins is a campaigner, storyteller and author. His earlier books include: Born on Third Base, The Wealth Hoarders, Wealth and Our Commonwealth (with Bill Gates Sr.), and Economic Apartheid in America. Collins directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies where he co-edits Inequality.org.
Books will be available for sale and signing. The program is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the Friends of Brooks Memorial Library. The venue is accessible to people in wheelchairs. For more information, visit brookslibraryvt.org or call 802-254-5290.
This The Arts item was submitted to The Commons.