This Saturday, May 7th, 3pm we’re looking forward to welcoming award-winning author Francisco Goldman to BookPeople to speak about and sign his new novel, Say Her Name.
The book is shelved in our Fiction section, however it’s neither wholly novel nor wholly memoir. Goldman, the author of four books and whose first novel The Long Night of the White Chicken won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, has written about the sudden death of his young wife, the writer Aura Estrada, in the form of a novel but using real names, historical details and circumstances. It might seem a strange decision; why not simply write a memoir? But when you consider the surrealism of grief, of coming to terms with the truth that not only a loved one but a lover is dead and how the heart might struggle to confront what seems like a cruel fiction, it becomes a rather beautiful and fitting way to approach his loss.
You can read an excerpt of Say Her Name here, courtesy of the book’s publisher, Grove Atlantic Press. The novel was the #1 Indie Next selection for April and has met with a string of great reviews, including the following:
- “Goldman revives her (his deceased wife Aura) through the only power left to him. So remarkable is this resurrection that at times I felt the book itself had a pulse.” – New York Times Sunday Book Review
- “The use of real names, the apparent cleaving to historical facts, the relentless attentiveness to detail and feeling — all suggest that tenebrous realm we’ve come to know through the eloquence of Joan Didion and Joyce Carol Oates.” – Washington Post
- “In writing Say Her Name, Goldman has shared with the reader the sort of ephemeral fantasy that we invent about the people we love. He blurs the line between lover and biographer. Goldman gives us enough of Estrada that I was left wishing she were alive to give her own account.” – NPR
- “The more deeply you have loved in your life, the more this book will wrench you, hold you by the throat and make you stare down what may be the most primal sorrow in the human repertoire.” – San Francisco Chronicle
- “Goldman (the author) weaves into his story excerpts from journals and short stories penned by his late wife. While all this logistical complexity could conceivably be confusing, at some level it doesn’t matter what’s “truth” and what’s “fiction,” for the story is inherently moving and tragic, and it focuses on loss and lament—universal themes whether they derive from memoir or from an author’s imagination.” – Kirkus Reviews
This is a highly original, incredibly personal work of literary fiction by an author who has brought his art to bear on an intimate tragedy with exquisite, if heartbreaking, precision. We hope you can join us in welcoming him this Saturday at 3pm.
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