August 28, 2023, 7:15 pm - 8:45 pm
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About Hester
By Laurie Lico Albanese
A Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Historical Fiction(2022)
Audible.com Best of the Year
A vivid reimagining of the woman who inspired Hester Prynne, the tragic heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and a journey into the enduring legacy of New England’s witchcraft trials.
Isobel Gamble is an unusually gifted needleworker, penniless and alone, making her way in Salem, Massachusetts in the early 1800s. Nathaniel Hawthorne is a man haunted by his ancestors, who sent innocent women to the gallows. Nathaniel and Isobel grow close. Together, they are a muse and a dark storyteller; the enchanter and the enchanted. Meticulously researched yet evocatively imagined, Laurie Lico Albanese’s Hester is a timeless tale of art, ambition, and desire that examines the roots of female creative power and the men who try to shut it down.
“A hauntingly beautiful––and imagined––origin story to The Scarlet Letter.” ––People
About The Scarlett Letter
by Nathanial Hawthorne
Originally published 1850
Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts, during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and will not reveal her lover’s identity.
Our discussion will be led by Ami Sands Brodoff. Ami suggests that readers enjoy Hester first as that is the featured read she will be discussing and analyzing. Readers are encouraged to read or re-visit The Scarlet Letter as background.
RSVP to Debbie Herman
