Join us for an evening with CJ Green, who will read from his debut novel, Record Lows. A conversation with David Zahl will follow. This in-person event will be free and open to the public. We recommend arriving early for the best seating.
About the Book: It’s 1977 and in the town of Oneira, New York, a blizzard is gathering force…
Harmon Pond, editor-in-chief of the local newspaper, is struggling to keep afloat amid mounting debt and vanishing ad revenue. So when the creditor who’s been secretly funding him vanishes without a trace, Harmon thinks it’s his lucky break. Meanwhile, his eldest daughter, Teresa—the paper’s ambitious intern—sees a story that could make her name.
But for Harmon’s devout Italian American wife, Pauline, the disappearance stirs up memories of a childhood she has tried hard to put behind her, and secrets she would prefer to keep buried.
With the parents tangled in their own concerns and Teresa relentlessly searching for answers, no one notices that middle-child Fran has developed a habit of sneaking out at night, and Lonnie, the youngest, is taking dangerous risks of his own.
As the manhunt intensifies, and the snowstorm builds into one of the worst in history, the Pond family must find a way to accept the truth, and each other, before they lose themselves forever.
In a dazzling debut that Rumaan Alam calls “gripping (and funny) and beautifully written,” Record Lows announces CJ Green as a thrilling new American voice.
About the Author: CJ Green is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and lives in Virginia with his family. Record Lows is his first novel.
About the Moderator: David Zahl is the author of Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What To Do About It and Low Anthropology: The Unlikely Key to a Gracious View of Others (and Yourself). His latest book, The Big Relief: The Urgency of Grace for a Worn-Out World, came out in April 2025 from Brazos Press. His writing has been featured in The Washington Post, Plough, and The Guardian, among other venues. He and his family live in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he also serves on the staff of Christ Episcopal Church and heads up Mockingbird.
Record Lows will be released on January 5. To order the book, please see below for the New Dominion Bookshop book order form or call the shop at 434-295-2552.
"Record Lows is a new Great American Novel. It’s the story of one upstate New York family during the worst blizzard in a generation—and without giving anything else away, I can promise you’ll be blown away by its propulsive plot and exquisite writing. This book is a marvel."
—Elin Hilderbrand
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CJ Green Photo Credit: Julia Hembree Smith