We are pleased to welcome Michigan author Eileen Pollack to the store this summer to sign her latest release, Breaking and Entering. Eileen will join us on Wednesday, June 27th from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.
Eileen Pollack's new novel, "Breaking and Entering," takes place in
rural Michigan in 1995 -- the epicenter and high point of the militia
movement, before increased scrutiny and revulsion at the Oklahoma City
bombing put some militia groups out of business and sent others
underground. (Though not a militiaman, the bomber Timothy McVeigh
attended their meetings and spent time on a Michigan farm with his
fellow conspirator Terry Nichols.) The Oklahoma City attack comes about a
third of the way through Pollack's book, a real-world event that
informs and shadows the fictional ones. ...Quite a lot of bad things
happen in "Breaking and Entering." Pollack is an engaging writer with a
first-rate eye for the telling sociological detail.... Since the
author's intent is to explore intolerance, hatred and evil, it is not
enough that these forces merely simmer and self-perpetuate. The stakes
are raised, and escalating consequences play out. --Jean Thompson,
The New York Times Book Review
--
Eileen has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the
Arts, the Michener Foundation, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, and the
Massachusetts Arts Council. Her stories have appeared in journals such
as Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Michigan Quarterly Review, SubTropics, Agni, and New England Review.
Her novella "The Bris" was chosen to appear in the Best American Short
Stories 2007 anthology, edited by Stephen King, while her stories have
been awarded two Pushcart Prizes, the Cohen Award for best fiction of
the year from Ploughshares, and similar awards from Literary Review and MQR. She lives in Ann Arbor and is a member of the faculty of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan.
