Dr. Terryl Hallquist, Thornton Wilder scholar and Ann Patchett fan, joins us to discuss Patchett's newest novel, Tom Lake. Tom Lake centers around a pivotal summer Lara spent in a summer stock theatre company where she performed her signature role of Emily in Thornton Wilder's OUR TOWN. There she meets two men who will change her life. She falls in love with the soon-to-be famous actor Peter Duke and meets the director/aspiring cherry farmer, Joe Nelson. Lara recalls the summer to her three grown daughters, home during the pandemic, who beg her to tell them about her glamorous life as a young actress, her romance with Peter Duke, and her blockbuster film. There are lots of layers to this novel and we explore many with Terryl. Linny is calling in from her American Red Cross deployment in Asheville, North Carolina and Nancy is fresh off her trip to see Linny followed by a trip to New York City to see six shows in five days.

Ann Patchett's 2023 novel, Tom Lake, explores the permeability between past and present. While they are picking cherries to try to save the crop since the normal large migrant laborer crew is absent due to COVID, Lara's adult daughters ask their mom to tell them the story of how she once dated the famous actor, Peter Duke. In retelling parts of her story, we learn about Lara's evolving notions of love and purpose. Once a promising ingenue, Lara was known for her role as Emily in multiple productions of OUR TOWN. Patchett's love of the Thornton Wilder play shines through her writing, giving this novel a multi-layered depth. This is the first Patchett novel Linny and Nancy have read and it's good one.

Penn State Berks professor, Dr. Thomas Jay Lynn, joins us on the front porch to discuss Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Tom's book, Chinua Achebe and the Politics of Narration: Envisioning Language, has been called "a notable contribution to Achebe studies." Tom takes us deep into the world of Things Fall Apart and highlights important and lasting contributions Achebe made to world literature and the West's understanding of Africa and the impacts of colonization. We learn more about Achebe's Igbo way of viewing the duality of life and how that duality is represented in his writing and his very flawed main character, Okonkwo.

Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is the oldest book we've discussed on the front porch; it was published in 1958 just as the European colonization of Africa was being dismantled. The book's setting is the beginning of colonization in the 1880's in what is now Nigeria, but was then Igboland. Achebe immerses us deeply into the culture of the Igbo people through the eyes of the esteemed, but highly flawed, Okonkwo. Near the end of the book, British missionaries and courts arrive and Okonkwo must decide how he will save his village and his way of life.

Picking up where Patrick Radden Keefe’s book Empire of Pain left off, journalist Aneri Pattani brings us up to date with the latest developments for Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family. Aneri is KFF Health News' award-winning senior correspondent. For the past two years, Aneri has been following the opioid settlement and the use of settlement funds. In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Sackler family could not claim immunity from lawsuits through the bankruptcy filing of their company, Purdue Pharma. This decision means the Sackler family is now vulnerable to civil suits and that the previous $4 billion settlement will likely be renegotiated. It's complicated but Aneri explains it all in a logical and accessible way.

In this investigative non-fiction book, Patrick Radden Keefe reveals the role of the Sackler family in the prescription opioid epidemic that has decimated communities and families since the 1990s. Empire of Pain is an unflinching and horrifying account of how the Sacklers, aware of the drug's addictiveness, pushed Oxycontin through clever marketing to doctors, willful manipulation of the FDA approval process, lying about research, and demonizing those who became addicted. Linny and Nancy discuss the impact of the opioid crisis nationally and personally. Empire of Pain made the New York Times Readers' List of 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. Nancy has begun giving copies of the book to family and friends in her personal quest to encourage everyone in America to read this book.

We wanted to learn more about mystery as a genre after reading Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club. Lucky for us, Dr. Karen Roggenkamp, professor of Literature and Languages at Texas A & M-Commerce, was available to stop by the Front Porch to talk about mysteries, crime, and mayhem. Karen helps us examine why mysteries are so popular and how the conventions of genre fiction were used in sensational crime reporting in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when women, such as Nellie Bly, broke through barriers of women working in newspaper newsrooms. Karen and Nancy report The Thursday Murder Club sets itself apart from other mysteries in the depth of its characters and the ways the author deals with the loss of physical and mental powers as our beloved main characters live out their final years. Linny had never read a mystery, but loved the book, too!

Murder comes to the Front Porch. But don't worry... this is a cozy murder, so we aren't too concerned that unsavory characters are killed. We are introduced to the members of The Thursday Murder Club: four seniors living in a retirement community who try to stay sharp by solving unsolved murders. But then, murder comes to their retirement home and they are faced with trying to identify the murderer, as even more bodies appear and the case becomes more complicated. It's a fun beach read that will keep you guessing.