Reader Meet Writer: Lee Smith Blue Marlin (Virtual Event)

Join our special Reader Meet Writer virtual event on Tuesday, April 21st at 4:00 p.m.

Born in the small coal-mining town of Grundy, Virginia, Lee Smith began writing stories at the age of nine and selling them for a nickel apiece. Since then, she has written seventeen works of fiction, including Fair and Tender Ladies, Oral History, and, most recently, Guests on Earth. She has received many awards, including the North Carolina Award for Literature and an Academy Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her novel The Last Girls was a New York Times bestseller as well as winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina, with her husband, the writer Hal Crowther.

Now comes this gem of a novella, which Smith names one of her favorite works of her illustrious career.

Lee Smith’s masterful storytelling manifests in this jewel of a novella that follows Jenny, an adventurous thirteen-year-old, down to Key West for a patched-up family vacation following the discovery of her father’s affair. Jenny confronts the frailty of family life while vying for the attention of dreamy actor Tony Curtis and even a role in his latest movie.

Available for the first time as a stand-alone novella, this book centers on the Blue Marlin Motel, where Jenny, her beautiful socialite mother, and chastened father share their sunny days with movie stars who are in town to film the 1959 classic, Operation Petticoat. Blue Marlin showcases this iconic writer at her best: sharp characterizations, perfect pitch, generous humor, and a quietly profound understanding of human nature.