Judith Turner-Yamamoto | Loving the Dead and Gone

4209-100 Lassiter Mill Road,Raleigh NC 27609

15 September, 2022

Description

The death of Donald Ray in a freak car accident becomes the catalyst for the release of passions, needs, and hurts. Clayton’s discovery of dead Donald Ray upends his longtime emotional numbness. Darlene, the seventeen-year-old widow, struggles to reconnect with her late husband while proving herself still alive. Soon Clayton and Darlene's bond of loss and death works its magic, drawing them into an affair that brings the loneliness in Clayton’s marriage to a crisis. When Aurilla Cutter, Clayton’s mother-in-law, learns about the affair, her own memories of longing and infidelity are set loose. Like Darlene's passions—unappeased and clung to—Aurilla’s possess an intensity that denies life to the present. As Aurilla’s own forbidden and tragic story of love, death, and repeated loss alternates with Darlene's and Clayton’s, the divide of generations narrows and collapses, building to the unlikely collision. "Loving the Dead and Gone is a rich and skillfully rendered portrait of a place that explores the generational effects of love and loss and the fragile connections within a family. Judith Turner-Yamamoto gives us a complex and memorable cast of characters and a vivid setting filled with stunning detail.” —Jill McCorkle, Hieroglyphics Judith Turner-Yamamoto's work has appeared in StorySOUTH, Mississippi Review, American Literary Review, and in many anthologies, including Walking the Edge, Show Us Your Papers, and Gravity Dancers. Her fellowships and awards include the Virginia Arts Commission, the Ohio Arts Council, the VCCA, the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize, and the Virginia Screenwriting Award. An art historian, her articles are published in Travel + Leisure, Elle, Art & Antiques, Interiors, and The Boston Globe. _________________Please note: All in-person events are subject to change.