Book Title: Shadow of the Lions (Algonquin Books, 2017)
Dates, Times, & Locations:
Monday, Mar. 11, 2019; 2:30 p.m.; NB-1601/1602 (Student Center) Perimeter College’s Dunwoody Campus
About Shadow of the Lions: How long must we pay for the crimes of our youth? That is just one question explored in Shadow of the Lions, set in the elite—and sometimes dark environs—of Blackburne, a prep school in Virginia. When Matthias Glass’s best friend, Fritz, vanishes without a trace in the middle of an argument during their senior year, Matthias tries to move on with his life, only to realize that until he discovers what happened to his missing friend, he will be stuck in the past, guilty, responsible, alone.
Almost ten year after Fritz’s disappearance, Matthias gets his chance. Offered a job teaching English at Blackburne, he gets swiftly drawn into the mystery. In the shadowy woods of his alma mater, he stumbles into a web of surveillance, dangerous lies, and buried secrets—and discovers the troubled underbelly of a school where the future has once always seemed bright.
About Christopher Swann: Christopher Swann is a graduate of Woodberry Forest School in Virginia. He earned a B.A. in English from Washington and Lee University, an M.A. in English and creative writing from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and a Ph.D. in creative writing from Georgia State University. He has won awards and recognition from Georgia State University, Washington and Lee University, and the Heekin Group Foundation’s Tara Fellowship for Short Fiction.
In 2018, Swann was a finalist fro the Townsend Prize for Fiction, as well as a finalist for a Georgia Author of the Year award. He lives with his wife and two sons in Atlanta, Georgia, where he is the English department chair at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School. Shadow of the Lions is his debut novel. More information about Christopher Swann is on his website.
In Christopher’s Own Words: The very idea of friendship fascinates me. How and why do we make friends? Why do some friendships last, and some fade. . . . But good friends, I think, weather all sorts of storms. Really good friends can reconnect rather easily, even if years have passed since they’ve last seen one another. . . . In my novel, I wanted to see how Matthias would react to the disappearance of his best friend and what kind of effect that disappearance would have on Matthias’s life. Imagine your best friend from high school vanishes, and years alter you learn you might be able to find out what happened to that friend. What would you do? That’s one of the central questions that drives my novel.
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This reading is free and open to the public. Faculty members from the English and Humanities departments are strongly encouraged to bring their classes. For more information, contact Alicia Johanneson: ajohanneson@gsu.edu or 678.891.3275. To request disability accommodations at this event, please contact Jessie Weintraub, director of the Office of University Events Management at jweintraub1@gsu.edu or 404.413.1350. Please provide your name and the event’s name, date, and sponsor when making your request.
The Chattahoochee Review Guest Author Series connects the strong, vibrant, and diverse literary community The Chattahoochee Review has built over the course of its 38-year history to Perimeter College students with the intent that these students will have a greater opportunity to engage with real-world writers who can better shape their writing and understanding of literature in all of its forms.
