Join us for a young adult writers night TONIGHT at 5pm with authors Marie Marquardt and Shalanda Stanley.
Marquardt, author of “Dream Things True,” is a professor in the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, is an immigration activist. Stanley, author of “Drowning is Inevitable,” is a professor in the school of education at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.
“Dream Things True” has been publicized as a “Romeo and Juliet” novel. While it is a modern-day love story between two teenagers in the South, there is so much more involved. Evan is the nephew of a Georgia state senator. His whole life has been handed to him on a silver platter: he’s white, privileged, and set to go to any college he wants. In the same town lives Alma, a bright and hardworking girl who has lived her entire life in the U.S., but since she was born in Mexico, she is an undocumented immigrant and her chances of going to college are slim. As Alma’s family members are deported one-by-one, and she falls in love, how can she tell the truth about her life to Evan?
With fast-paced action, this book feels so real because Marquardt has worked with volunteers who run El Refugio, a nonprofit that offers temporary lodging and support to the loved ones of detained immigrants. Over 10 years of listening to stories from immigrants has culminated in this debut novel. “Dream Things True” looks at the sanctity of all human life and shows that for each immigrant, there is hope that dreams are possible.
“Drowning Is Inevitable” is a Southern-gothic tale that focuses on four teenagers who live in small St. Francisville, Louisiana, where everyone knows everyone. Olivia, 17, is constantly living in the shadow of her mother’s bleak past, and even her grandmother calls her by her mother’s name: Lillian. When Olivia and her friends find themselves in a heap of trouble, they make a run for New Orleans, where they seek to hide out.
The landscape of “Drowning is Inevitable,” a teenage coming-of-age novel, is one of the present-day South. Stanley creates characters that could be your neighbors, who grapple with real-world pressures at home and among friends. This is a novel that has great depth and heartbreak, and the actual journey of the four friends mimics the journey each of them must go through within themselves.
Original to the Clarion-Ledger
Clara Martin works for Lemuria Books.
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