Barbara Kingsolver (presented by Seattle Arts & Lectures)

From the author of Demon Copperhead and The Poisonwood Bible comes a new novel about the choices that shape a life—and the ones we spend a lifetime trying to outrun. Join Barbara Kingsolver for an evening about love, art, the long reach of the past, and Partita—her new novel. In Partita, Livia Cable has made her peace with her marriage and modest livelihood in the farm country where she grew up, until a shocking phone call from an old lover shakes her to the core. Decades earlier, this man knew her as Livia Bohusz, a music conservatory student estranged from her home and family, uncertain of anything except her passion for music and promise as an extraordinary pianist. His request, now, to see her again stirs up ghosts she’s kept at bay for a lifetime. Shifting between past and present, Livia’s decision to meet or reject the reunion means confronting step by step, in memories framed as musical dances, the experiences of childhood loss, abandonment, self-immolating passion, and perilous