Wednesday, May 25 | 7:00 PM | Central Library
Join the AViD livestream via Zoom! The waiting room will open at 6:55 PM on Wednesday, May 25. The password is "avid".
New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Jason Mott lives in southeastern North Carolina. He has a BFA in Fiction and an MFA in Poetry, both from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. His poetry and fiction have appeared in various literary journals.
Jason’s fourth novel, Hell Of A Book, was released in the summer of 2021, and received the 2021 National Book Award for fiction. It’s a story that goes to the heart of racism, police violence, and the hidden costs exacted upon Black Americans, and America as a whole.
In Hell of a Book, an African-American author sets out on a cross-country book tour to promote his bestselling novel. That storyline drives Jason Mott’s novel and is the scaffolding of something much larger and more urgent: since his novel also tells the story of Soot, a young Black boy living in a rural town in the recent past, and The Kid, a possibly imaginary child who appears to the author on his tour.
Throughout, these characters’ stories build and build and as they converge, they astonish. For while this heartbreaking and magical book entertains and is at once about family, love of parents and children, art, and money, there always is the tragic story of a police shooting playing over and over on the news.
Hell of a Book was a Jenna Bush Hager “Read With Jenna” Book Club pick, Carnegie Medals For Excellence in Fiction Longlist selection, a 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize Longlist selection, a Joyce Carol Oates Prize Longlist selection, and the 2021 Sir Walter Raleigh Prize for Fiction winner.
Mott is also the author of two poetry collections: We Call This Thing Between Us Love and “…hide behind me…” He is the author of three other novels: The Returned, The Wonder of All Things, and The Crossing.
Event Info
- Admission is free.
- Doors open at 6:00 PM.
- Seating is first-come, first-served.
- Free parking is available:
- In the Des Moines Public Library parking garage, located on Grand Ave.
- On the surface lot on the corner of 10th St. and Grand Ave., across from the library.
- At the end of the program, there will be a question and answer period. A book signing will follow.
- Books will be available to purchase before and after the program courtesy of Beaverdale Books.
Jason's Books
Novels
- Hell of a Book (2021)
- The Crossing (2018)
- The Wonder of All Things (2014)
- The Returned (2013)
Poetry Collections
- "...hide behind me..." (2011)
- We Call This Thing Between Us Love (2009)