Great Falls Forum with Sarah Perry

This event is past.

  • Nov 21, 2019

The 2019-2020 season of the Great Falls Forum continues on Thursday, November 21st, featuring author Sarah Perry, with a talk entitled “After the Eclipse: Grief, the Law, and the Making of a Memoir.” The program will take place from 12 noon to 1 PM in Callahan Hall at the Lewiston Public Library.

“A violent act is an epicenter; it shakes everyone within reach and creates other stories, cracks open the earth and reveals buried secrets.” So begins After the Eclipse: A Mother’s Murder, a Daughter’s Search, Sarah Perry’s account of her mother’s murder in Bridgton, Maine, when Sarah was twelve years old. Crystal Perry was a hardworking single mother, a hand-sewer in the Sebago shoe shop who was beloved by many in her hometown. During a twelve-year investigation, local police and state detectives worked tirelessly to find her killer, while Sarah, the only witness, did what she could to help them while working to grow into a woman who would make her mother proud. Driven to know more about Crystal even after the trial, she wrote After the Eclipse, published in 2017 to excellent reviews in The New York Times, The Portland Press Herald, Slate, Kirkus, and Publisher’s Weekly.

In the six-year process of writing the book, Sarah interviewed many people involved in the investigation, including lead detective Walter Grzyb. For this month’s Great Falls Forum, Sarah and Det. Grzyb will come together for a discussion of Crystal’s life and death, as well as their process of revisiting both for the creation of the book.

Sarah Perry is the author of the memoir After the Eclipse, which was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a Poets & Writers Notable Nonfiction Debut, and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. Perry is the recipient of the 2018 Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award and fellowships from the Edward F. Albee Foundation, VCCA, Playa, and The Studios of Key West. She holds an M.F.A. in nonfiction from Columbia University, where she currently teaches, and is the 2019 McGee Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Davidson College.

The Great Falls Forum is a monthly, brown-bag speaker series featuring statewide and regional leaders in public policy, business, academia and the arts. The programs are free, open to all and no reservations are required. Coffee, tea and bottled water are provided for a donation at the event. The Forum is a co-sponsorship of the Sun Journal, Bates College, and LPL.

For more information, contact LPL Adult & Teen Services at (207) 513-3135 or LPLReference@Gmail.com