Wednesday, June 18 Natalie Baszile

Wednesday night at 8 PM on Bibliocracy, KPFK 90.7 FM:  NATALIE BASZILE.  It’s a pleasure to not only celebrate the arrival of a first work from a writer whose novel you’ve anticipated, but to welcome it heartily when the book turns out to be a story so very strong, engaging, a pleasure to read, with writing of confidence and authority, especially about place.  It is something special to be taught about someplace in the world unfamiliar  by somebody you don’t know, and as a result of that teaching to develop trust in and affection for their characters and the project itself.  In the tradition of Barbara Kingsolver and Louise Erdrich, films by John Sayles, with blurbs on the back from Karen Joy Fowler, Natalie Baszile’s debut novel Queen Sugar immerses us in the life of a character from Los Angeles who finds an unexpected reason to relocate to New Orleans.  Young, educated, urban widow and mother Charlotte “Charley” Bordelon inherits a sugar cane farm of all things, and with it a family she does not really know, troubled and complicated.  There are of course secrets and a steep learning --- and living --- curve for our heroine, for whom we are rooting all the way. Natalie Baszile has an MA in Afro American Studies from UCLA and an MFA at Warren Wilson.  She studied with Jim Krusoe at Santa Monica College and now lives in San Francisco.  Thanks for listening, on the radio or online, or as a download whenever you like.  Note:  Mr. Bib takes some time off after next week’s broadcast, to write and complete a book project. Stay tuned for excellent substitute programming.  I’ll return in spring 2015, with more Bibliocracy Radio.  Thanks, always, for listening and for supporting anti-corporate non-commercial community-support activist radio in Southern California.