Get Lit February Book Club: Tananarive Due with musical guest Jake Blount

Join WNYC's special guest host Jordan Lauf and Tananarive Due for a live conversation about her newest book, The Reformatory, followed by a special musical performance from Jake Blount.

The New York Public Library and WNYC—two indispensable New York institutions—are partnering to host a book club that brings New Yorkers together and fosters community.

The February title is Tananarive Due's The Reformatory - a gripping, haunting work of historical fiction piecing together the life of a relative the family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys into the light.

Gracetown, Florida, June 1950. Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys for coming to the defense of his older sister. And so begins his journey deep into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the horrible truths of the school they call The Reformatory, where Robbie's talent for seeing ghosts that was once a comfort to him has now become a window to the horrors of racism and injustice, for both the living, and the dead.

Throughout the month, All of It host Alison Stewart and the Library will accompany readers, providing touchpoints on-air and on social media at @allofitwnyc and @nypl. Borrow the book (and more than 300,000 others) for free through the Library’s e-reader app SimplyE, available for iOS and Android devices.

Join Jordan, the author, and readers everywhere for a live conversation, in-person or online, on Wednesday, February 28 at 6 PM. The conversation will be followed by a special performance from Jake Blount.

To join in person | Please be sure to register for an In-Person Ticket. Doors will open 30 minutes before the program begins. For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. If you register for multiple tickets, please provide the name of each person who will be attending the event or arrive with your entire party present. Only registered patrons will be granted entry into the event space. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A standby line will form 30 minutes before the program.

To join the livestream | A livestream of this event will be available on the NYPL event page. To receive an email reminder shortly in advance of the event, please be sure to register!

COVID PROTOCOLS FOR IN-PERSON PROGRAMS

If you have symptoms consistent with COVID-19 or suspect you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive, please stay home.

ACCESSIBILITY

In-Person | Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template. This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs.

Livestream | Captions and a transcript will be provided. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.

GET THE BOOK

• Borrow: NYPL Catalog 


• E-Book app: SimplyE, soon available on iOS and Android

Don't have a New York Public Library card? Get one here!

To see all of our previous WNYC Get Lit titles check out our book club page here!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tananarive Due is an American Book Award and NAACP Image Award­–winning author, who was an executive producer on Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror for Shudder and teaches Afrofuturism and Black Horror at UCLA. She and her husband, science fiction author Steven Barnes, cowrote the graphic novel The Keeper and an episode for Season 2 of The Twilight Zone for Paramount Plus and Monkeypaw Productions. Due is the author of several novels and two short story collections, Ghost Summer: Stories and The Wishing Pool and Other Stories. She is also coauthor of a civil rights memoir, Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights (with her late mother, Patricia Stephens Due). Learn more at TananariveDue.com.

ABOUT THE PERFORMER

Jake Blount is an award-winning interpreter of Black folk music based in Providence, RI who has charted an unprecedented, Afrofuturist course on his pilgrimage through sound archives and song collections. In his hands, the banjo, fiddle, electric guitar and synthesizer become ceremonial objects used to channel the insurgent creativity of his forebears. From transfixing solo sets to full-band festival appearances, Blount’s performances at the likes of Carnegie Hall, the Newport Folk Festival, the Library of Congress and NPR’s Tiny Desk - like his recent Smithsonian Folkways release, The New Faith - seamlessly merge centuries-old traditional songs with the trappings and techniques of modern Black genres. This “genrequeer” approach to the traditions has earned his music a place in the very same archives from which he extracts his repertoire. In defiance of genre categories, revisionist histories and linear time, Blount fashions an “Afrofuturist folklore” that disintegrates the boundaries between acoustic and electric, artist and medium, and ancestor and progeny.

CONNECT

Please submit all press inquiries to Sara Beth Joren at least 48 hours before the event: email sarabethjoren@nypl.org or use this Gmail template

For all other questions and inquiries, please email adultprogramming@nypl.org or use this Gmail template

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