Southern Lit Alliance announces author Christopher Swann as part of the South Bound lecture series for a reading and discussion of his award-winning debut novel, The Shadow of the Lions.
The event will take place on Sunday, Aug. 12 at 2 p.m. and will be followed by a book signing with the author. The event will be held at the Arts Building, 301 East 11th St. in downtown Chattanooga and is being hosted by the Southern Lit Alliance. The South Bound lecture series is sponsored by Henderson, Hutcheson and McCullough and Monarch Financial Group. Tickets are $10 and available at www.southernlitalliance.org.
About the book:
In this gripping literary thriller, Shadow of the Lions, Christopher Swann will take you deep into the dark heart of privilege, secrets, and lies at an elite boys’ boarding school in Virginia. Atmospheric and full of twists, this accomplished debut explores the nature of friendship, betrayal, and whether it is possible—ever—to escape the past. Swann, an alumnus of a boarding school himself and now a teacher at a private day school, brings to his storytelling an insider’s knowledge of the world he creates here, the closed, overheated atmosphere of the elite Blackburne School.
As the novel begins, it has been almost ten years since Matthias graduated from Blackburne, where his roommate and best friend, Fritz, vanished into the woods without a trace after the two boys had an argument. Matthias has long been haunted by the idea that he was somehow responsible for Fritz’s disappearance, and now he finds himself stalled, a professional failure, a bad boyfriend, an incomplete man. When he is offered the opportunity to return to Blackburne to teach English, he sees it as a chance to put his life back together. But once on campus, Matthias becomes driven to find out what happened to Fritz, caught up in events that begin to spiral swiftly out of control. Along the way, he must confront the shocking death of a student, Fritz’s powerful Washington, D.C., family, and the particular politics of a prestigious prep school.
“All stories have at their heart a mystery, a question to be answered,” says Mr. Swann. “The question at the heart of this book—what would happen if your best friend disappeared?—is one that haunts Matthias. But just as fascinating to me is what happens to the people left behind in the aftermath. What kind of shadow would such an event cast over your life?”
About Christopher Swann
Christopher Swann is a graduate of Woodberry Forest School in Virginia. He earned a B.A. in English from Washington and Lee University, an M.A. in English and creative writing from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and a Ph.D. in creative writing from Georgia State University. He has won awards and recognition from GSU, Washington and Lee University, and the Heekin Group Foundation’s Tara Fellowship for Short Fiction. He lives with his wife and two sons in Atlanta, where he is the English department chair at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School.
Awards include:
Georgia Author of the Year Nominee 2018
Townsend Prize for Fiction Finalist 2018
Southern Book Prize Long List 2018
Audible #1 Bestseller in February 2018
Southern Living Best Southern Books of 2017
Publishers Weekly Best Summer Books 2017
Alabama Booksmith’s Signed First Editions Club (August 2017 Selection)