Author of 'Torch' Visiting for Northfield Reads! February 18, 2007

Cheryl Strayed, author of the critically acclaimed novel “Torch,” will appear at 7 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 18, at the Northfield Arts Guild as part of the Northfield Reads! communitywide book club.

“Torch,” says Publishers Weekly, is a “beautifully observed” story that “shimmers with a humane grace.” Teresa Rae Wood is a local celebrity in the town of Midden, Minnesota. Her popular radio show, Modern Pioneers!, a kind of hippie Prairie Home Companion, is an embarrassment to her children, Claire and Josh, and a source of pride to her common-law husband, Bruce. When Teresa summons Claire and Josh home unexpectedly, they are stunned by the news: Teresa, 38, is dying of cancer.

In a few weeks, Wood is gone. Suddenly the mundane irritations and petty betrayals of family relationships loom large, as Claire, Josh, and Bruce, isolated in grief just when they need one another most, seek comfort elsewhere. To his children’s disbelief, Bruce quickly marries again. Meanwhile, Claire carries the torch of her mother’s memory, as Josh drifts — until he issues a warning cry for help that cannot be ignored.

Above all, “Torch” is about siblings thrown into adulthood and the terror of learning how to keep living in the face of tragedy. According to People magazine, the book is “a heartbreaking anatomy of one family’s grief … beautifully written and authentic.”

Northfield Reads!, which is sponsored by River City Books, the Carleton and St. Olaf bookstores, the Northfield Public Library and Monkey See, Monkey Read, is free and open to the public.

River City Books is discounting the book 20 percent through the event.

Information: 507-646-7754

Official Website: http://rivercity.booksense.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp?s=storeevents&eventId=339531