Jeanine Cummins in Conversation with Karen Dukess: Speak to Me of Home

Titcomb's Bookshop presents #1 bestselling author Jeanine Cummins (American Dirt) to speak about her new novel (pub May 13th) on Wednesday, May 14th at 6:30 PM at Oak Ridge School (260 Quaker Meetinghouse Rd, East Sandwich, MA).

Registration is required and space is limited. A signed copy of Speak to Me of Home is included with your ticket. Registration can be completed on this page or by calling Titcomb's Bookshop at 508-888-2331. There are two ticket options: the first includes admission for one person and one book, and the other includes admission for two people and one book (single household).

Both Cummins' and Dukess' books will be for sale at the event, and Cummins will personalize books after the presentation. If you cannot attend but would like a signed copy of the book, please order .

ABOUT THE BOOK

What does it mean to call a place home? From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jeanine Cummins comes a deeply felt multigenerational family story.

On her wedding day in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1968, Rafaela Acuña y Daubón has mild misgivings, but she marries Peter Brennan Jr. anyway in a blaze of romantic optimism. She has no way of knowing how dramatically her life will change when she uproots her young family to start over in the American Midwest, unleashing a fleet of disappointments.

In the 1980s, against the backdrop of her mother’s isolation in St. Louis, Missouri, Rafaela’s daughter, Ruth, wants only to belong. Eager to fit in, Ruth lets go of her language, habits, and childhood memories of Puerto Rico. It’s not until decades later when Ruth’s own daughter, Daisy, returns to San Juan that her mother and grandmother begin to truly reflect on the choices that have come to define their lives.

When a hurricane ravages the island in 2023, leaving Daisy critically injured, Rafaela and Ruth return to the city where their story began. As they gather at Daisy’s bedside, we follow them back into the moments that brought them to this point: We watch as they come of age, fall in love, take risks, and contend with all the heartbreaks, triumphs, and reversals of fortune—both good and bad—that make up a meaningful life. As old memories come to light, so do buried secrets, leaving everyone in the family wondering exactly where it is that they belong.

A striking, resonant examination of marriage, family, and identity, Speak to Me of Home is ultimately a story of mothers and daughters that asks: How can three women who share geography and genetics have such wildly different ideas of where they come from? And, more important, can they discover a common language to find their way back home?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeanine Cummins is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of , which was an Oprah’s Book Club and a Barnes & Noble Book Club selection, as well as a #1 Indie Next pick. The novel has been translated into thirty-seven languages and sold more than three and a half million copies worldwide. Her other works include the memoir , and the novels and . She lives in New York with her husband, their two daughters, and their dogs.

ABOUT KAREN DUKESS

Karen Dukess is the author of and (pub June 10th). Karen has been a newspaper reporter in Florida, a magazine publisher in Russia, and a speechwriter on gender equality for the United Nations. She has a degree in Russian studies from Brown University and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University. She lives outside of New York City and in Truro on Cape Cod, where she interviews some of today’s most acclaimed writers as host of the Castle Hill Author Talks for the Truro Center for the Arts. Find out more at KarenDukess.com.

EVENT ADDRESS

Oak Ridge School

260 Quaker Meetinghouse Rd

East Sandwich, MA 02537

Also check out other Arts events in Sandwich, Literary Art events in Sandwich.