Jayne Moore Waldrop presents Drowned Town

2720 Frankfort Avenue,Louisville KY 40206

25 February, 2022

Description

In graceful prose, dotted with zingers and surprises, Waldrop weaves a modern story of reconciliation and hope around this heartbreaking his Masks are required for in-person events In Conversation with Silas House “They had been told their sacrifice was for the public good. They were never told how much they would miss it, or for how long.” Drowned Town explores the multigenerational impact caused by the loss of home and illuminates the joys and sorrows of a group of people bound together by western Kentucky’s Land Between the Lakes and the lakes that lie on either side of it. The linked stories are rooted in a landscape forever altered by the mid-twentieth-century impoundment of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers and the seizing of property under the power of eminent domain to create a national recreation area on the narrow strip of land between the lakes. The massive federal land and water projects completed in quick succession were designed to serve the public interest by providing hydroelectric power, flood control, and economic progress for the region— at great sacrifice for those who gave up their homes, livelihoods, towns, and history. The narrative follows two women whose lives are shaped by their friendship and connection to the place, and their stories go back and forth in time to show how the creation of the lakes both healed and hurt the people connected to them. In the process, the stories emphasize the importance of sisterhood and family, both blood and created, and how we cannot separate ourselves from our places in the world. “In graceful prose, dotted with zingers and surprises, Jayne Moore Waldrop weaves a modern story of reconciliation and hope around this heartbreaking history. I’m impressed by her undaunted plunge into the subject and the compelling fiction she comes up with.”—Bobbie Ann Mason, author of Dear Ann “Drowned Town is a tender, touching book about a thoroughly urbanized and cynical Louisville attorney shedding her prejudices about country life and ways to find love amid the watery landscapes of western Kentucky. As a backdrop for the developing romance, Jayne Moore Waldrop offers a tender portrait of women’s friendship, and poignantly evokes the countryside and towns before their flooding by the great TVA lakes.”—Fenton Johnson, author of The Man Who Loved Birds Jayne Moore Waldrop, a western Kentucky native, is the author of Retracing My Steps, a finalist in the 2018 New Women’s Voices Chapbook Contest, and Pandemic Lent: A Season in Poems. Waldrop’s work has appeared in the Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Still: The Journal, Appalachian Review, New Madrid Review, Deep South Magazine, New Limestone Review, Women Speak, and other literary journals. Silas House is a nationally bestselling writer whose work frequently appears in The New York Times.  He is a former commentator for NPR and his work has been widely published in journals and magazines.  He has lectured internationally and is widely regarded as one of the major writers of the American South.