Please join us for book talks and signing by three local authors:

• BRILLIANT DISGUISE by Susan Kellam
• CONFESSIONS OF A WEEKEND WARRIOR by Brigadier General Paul “Greg” Smith
• WE WERE PRETENDING by Hannah Gersen

Books will be available for purchase, courtesy of the authors. See book and author descriptions below.

BRILLIANT DISGUISE Book blurb:

After their nuclear family exploded into a vaporous mushroom cloud, the two siblings could only, as Bert the Turtle jingled in civil-defense cartoons, duck and cover. The young Susan basked in her brother Robert's glow. Teachers singled her out because, certainly, the little sister would excel too. But how could she ever reach their expectations? Instead, she rebelled, chose the wrong men, drank and took drugs.

Susan talked her way into a job at Rolling Stone magazine in 1976. Three years later, as an organizer of five nights of No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden with Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, and many more, she got snared in the rock politics scramble and her brother saved her. Many years later, though, she could not save him.

Only in retrospect can Susan piece together how Robert's too-brief life was a brilliant disguise. Traumatized by their childhood experience, he buried his pain behind an outsized personality. On his twelfth wedding anniversary in 1990, he ended his life. This book winds together Susan's rock-and-roll odyssey with an exploration of Robert's life, teasing out clues as to why the past so dangerously swamped him.

Brilliant Disguise is her journey to discover what she missed in her brother's 39 years as Big K, adored by all. And, why she—Little K—survived.

About the Author

Susan Kellam started her career at Rolling Stone magazine when typewriters were still being flung across offices. Eventually leaving the rock-and-roll world for straight journalism, she received a 1985 Folio Award for a three-part series in The New York Times, "Battling for a Prize: Radio Station License."

Her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, Washingtonian magazine, Congressional Quarterly, The Baltimore Sun, and numerous other places. She finished her full-time career as senior communications expert on domestic policy at the Brookings Institution. The Obama administration tapped her to edit the Economic Report of the President for the four years of his second term; the Biden administration did the same for his first year. Susan was a contributing writer on the book, How Ten Global Cities Take on Homelessness (May 2021, University of California Press). She lives on a salt-water farm in Maine with two rambunctious dogs.

CONFESSIONS OF A WEEKEND WARRIOR Book blurb:

"America’s National Guard was once considered a ragtag gaggle of pretend soldiers. Beginning in the 1980s the National Guard gradually transformed into today’s highly flexible operational force that answers our nation’s call for overseas combat deployments as well as domestic emergencies that run the gamut from lifesaving disaster responses to staffing Covid clinics.
Brigadier General Paul “Greg” Smith describes his personal journey during these years, from a callow cadet to a committed commander leading military forces in response to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Smith gives a humorous, gritty, and sometimes touching glimpse into the inner workings of this unique military organization while offering portraits of the men and women who serve as the minutemen of our age. His reflections on service, duty, and the complexities of command will enlighten anyone who seeks to better understand the challenges of leadership."

About the Author

Paul “Greg” Smith served for more than 38 years in uniform, retiring as a US Army Brigadier General. He also pursued a parallel career as a special education teacher and high school administrator. His writing has appeared in Military History, ARMY, Canada’s History, Country Living, Career World and other periodicals. He teaches Counterterrorism Strategy at Nichols College in Dudley, Massachusetts.

WE WERE PRETENDING Book blurb:

The lure of an old friendship takes a woman in a bold new direction—away from a life she never wanted—in this tensely plotted novel of second, and third, chances.

Leigh Bowers has never felt more alone. After being caught illegally administering Hecate’s Key—a medicinal mushroom that brings peace to terminally ill patients—Leigh has lost her mother, her job, her marriage, and primary custody of her daughter. But Leigh’s life takes a hairpin turn when Jennifer Hex, an enigmatic woman from her past, reemerges.

Jennifer, a guru attuned to transcendent earthly wonders, crossing paths with a lost woman like Leigh after all this time? It’s providence. Jennifer has a plan to fulfill both their lives: they’ll flee to the Canadian forest, live off the grid, commune with nature, and harvest the rare palliative mushrooms. It’s everything Leigh has been yearning for—a connection, a purpose, a spiritual confessor, and an adventure.

But as Leigh becomes more and more enchanted with Jennifer’s extreme proposal, she wonders how well she really knows her old friend. Is Jennifer truly offering a blissful mind-body woodland escape, or is it a dangerous, ill-conceived plan that will upend Leigh’s life all over again?

About the Author

Hannah Gersen is the author of Home Field. Her fiction has been published most recently in Electric Lit, Visions, the Southern Review, and New England Review. Her essays and criticism have appeared in the New York Times, Poets & Writers Magazine, Lit Hub, Granta, and The Common, among others. She lives in Brunswick, Maine, with her family.