Milwaukee author Lauren Fox’s new novel, Days of Awe, is a gripping and emotional narrative of one woman’s brave struggle to overcome tragedy. Isabel Moore has had more than her fair share of heartache recently. Her husband has moved out and rented his own apartment, her once amicable daughter has transformed into a teenage nightmare and, on top of all that, her beloved best friend—funny, irresistible daredevil Josie—was tragically killed in an automobile accident.
Days of Awe, however, is much more than a depressing rumination on lost friendships and failed marriages. Filled with honest characters facing universal struggles, this poignant examination of love, parenthood and family tackles difficult topics with ease and reflects on life’s challenges with a sharp wit and enlightening perspectives. Days of Awe is a sweetly tender portrayal of how to overcome life’s toughest obstacles and move on with simple grace and personal understanding. Readers will delight in Izzy’s unflinching attempts to piece her life back together following a long string of sadness and connect with this quirky narrator’s witty, dark humor and strong psyche.
Fox is the author of the novels Still Life with Husband and Friends Like Us. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Glamour, Seventeen and Salon. She graduated with her MFA from the University of Minnesota and currently makes her home in Milwaukee. Fox will speak at Boswell Book Co. at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 4.
BOOK HAPPENINGS
Jeffrey Gingold
7 p.m., July 30
Boswell Book Co.
2559 N. Downer Ave.
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Among the worst of the Holocaust’s countless horrors were the child victims who endured disease, hunger and violence in occupied Poland. An incredible true story by Milwaukee author Jeffrey Gingold sheds new light on the anguish that entire families withstood in the Warsaw ghettos and its lingering effects on its youngest sufferers. Based on audio recordings of interviews with Gingold’s father and grandmother, Tunnel, Smuggle, Collect: A Holocaust Boy centers around 7-year-old Sam Gingold as he fights to stay alive by stealing food and medicine, surviving a Nazi forced labor camp and eventually executing a harrowing escape. Gingold is an acclaimed author and advocate for Holocaust education.
Jim Cryns
6:35 p.m., Aug. 3
Concordia University
12800 Lake Shore Drive, Mequon
Milwaukee author Jim Cryns has assembled a collection of essays and interviews originally published in the Brewers Gameday Magazine on our town’s embattled but beloved major league team. Bench Jockeys: Stories About the Milwaukee Brewers includes chapters on Randy Wolf, Michael Fiers and others, and is well written in crisp sportscaster prose. Cryns will sign books during the Northwood Leagues game, pitting the Lakeshore Chinooks against the Battle Creek Bombers, at Concordia University. Game time is 6:35 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 3.
