Caitlin Shetterly and Scott Simon to Discuss New Books at The Music Hall

On Wednesday, August 19 at 7pm, bestselling author Caitlin Shetterly visits The Music Hall Lounge along with Scott Simon, host of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday and Up First. The pair will be discussing their new books: THE GULF OF LIONS (Shetterly) and ULYSSES S. CAT AND OTHER ANIMALS I HAVE KNOWN (Simon). Caitlin Shetterly's new novel, The Gulf of Lions, is set in France and explores motherhood, cancer, daughters, love, and the ways the stories we tell become the fabric of our lives. Scott Simon's new book, Ulysses S. Cat and Other Animals I Have Known, is a charming and poignant collection of vignettes about the animals who have shaped his life and the deep, often surprising bonds between humans and animals, whimsically illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck.

The 7pm event will have writers Caitlin Shetterly and Scott Simon in conversation about family, forgiveness, and the odysseys of ordinary lives, followed by an audience Q&A. It will be held at The Music Hall Lounge at 131 Congress St., in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

ABOUT THE BOOKS:

The Gulf of Lions, a standalone and evocative sequel to the acclaimed Pete and Alice in Maine, follows a mother who, recovering from the trauma of breast cancer and a mastectomy, takes a once-in-a-lifetime trip across France with her two daughters. Matriarch Alice, teenage Sophie, and young Iris begin their odyssey in the French Alps, where the freeing countryside helps Alice feel alive for the first time since her diagnosis. But as the family continues south, traveling through Provence, where they camp on the Gulf of Lions, an area of the Mediterranean known for wild, roaring winds and purple fields of lavender, they start to unravel the yarn that binds them together. By the time they head to the charred Pyrenees, and then back across France to stay in a castle that sits on the confluence of two rivers, Alice worries that the trip might have been a disastrous and reckless mistake.

A beautiful meditation on womanhood, personhood, exploration, survival and sexual awakenings, The Gulf of Lions is a breathtaking and emotionally resonant story that plumbs the eternal question: What, in the end, will keep a family from falling apart?

In Ulysses S. Cat and Other Animals I Have Known, Scott Simon warmly philosophizes on the unforgettable and utterly ordinary moments between species, along with their joys, worries, love, and humor. Depicting a lifetime of remarkable, enduring relationships with pets, Simon explores the difficulty of expressing the strong ties we feel: a kinship between humans and animals that's more familial than “owner,” and more mutual than “caregiver” or “guardian.”

Paired with the charming, whimsical illustrations of renowned New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck, Simon reflects on how pets unlock our hearts and burrow into our lives beginning with his family's dog guiding his first steps. From a cat who escaped the British Embassy (Simon had to promise to raise her as British) to a series of beta fish all named Salman Fishdie, he reveals how our animals change not just our lives but how we see the world. Enchanting and thoughtful, Ulysses S. Cat is a profusion of exuberant memories and musings on a life spent in animal company.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS: 

Caitlin Shetterly is the author of Modified, Made for You and Me, and Pete and Alice in Maine. She is the editor of the bestselling Fault Lines: Stories of Divorce. She won the Maine Literary Award for Modified in 2017. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, Orion, Elle, Self, the Boston Globe, Medium, LitHub, Romper, and on Oprah.com, as well as on This American Life, Hidden Brain, Studio 360, Weekend Edition, and various other public radio shows. She is an editor-at-large for Frenchly, a French arts and culture online news magazine. A Maine native, she graduated with honors from Brown University and now lives with her two sons and husband in her home state. Caitlin is passionately committed to helping preserve, in every way she can, the peace of wild things.

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