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Join us for an evening with author Elliot Ackerman, who will read from his new novel, Red Dress in Black and White. A conversation with author Christopher Tilghman will follow. This event will be free and open to the public.
National Book Award finalist Elliot Ackerman returns with his most personal and provocative novel to date: Red Dress in Black and White. Set against the Gezi Park protests in Turkey, where Ackerman spent many years living, and reporting from, Red Dress in Black and White is a novel about secrets and power—within a marriage, a family, and a society. Unfolding over the course of a single day, the novel tells the story of a successful Turkish businessman and his American wife. She wants to return home to the United States with their son and her lover; he, leaning on his connections, enlists an American diplomat to try to stop her, and inadvertently brings to light the corruption in their shared life.
"Ackerman further shows himself to be the Tim O’Brien of our era."
—Vogue
Elliot Ackerman is a National Book Award finalist, author of the novels Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue, and of the nonfiction book Places and Names. His work has appeared in Esquire, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and The Best American Short Stories, among other publications. He is both a former White House Fellow and a marine, and he served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He divides his time between New York City and Washington, DC.
Christopher Tilghman is the author of two short story collections, In a Father’s Place and The Way People Run, and four novels, The Right-Hand Shore, Mason’s Retreat, Roads of the Heart, and Thomas and Beal in the Midi. He is a professor of English at the University of Virginia and lives with his wife, the novelist Caroline Preston, in Charlottesville, Virginia, and in Centreville, Maryland.
Photo Credits: Huger Foote (Elliot Ackerman), Susan Kalergis Photography (Christopher Tilghman)