Author event with Erik Larson

As part of Southern Festival of Books, Humanities Tennessee, Parnassus Books, and Montgomery Bell Academy are thrilled to present an evening with Erik Larson, as he discusses his new book, The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War.

This ticketed event will begin at 6:30 PM and will take place in Paschall Theater at Montgomery Bell Academy. Doors will open at 5:30.

Tickets:

Each ticket is $40.00 and includes one general admission seat and one signed copy of The Demon of Unrest. Books will be pre-sigend. There will NOT be a signing line for personalizations for this event.

Parking:

Parking is free on the MBA campus. There is a garage located at 205 South Wilson Boulevard (East side of MBA's campus. You may also park in the Vine Street Church parking lot or in any of the surface lots on campus.

About the book:

The author of The Splendid and the Vile, brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this "riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult" (Los Angeles Times).
"A feast of historical insight and narrative verve . . . This is Erik Larson at his best, enlivening even a thrice-told tale into an irresistible thriller."--The Wall Street Journal

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.

Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln's election and the Confederacy's shelling of Sumter--a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were "so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them."

At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter's commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable--one that will eventually K*ll 750,000 Americans.

Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink--a dark reminder that we often don't see a cataclysm coming until it's too late.

About the author:

Erik Larson is the author of six previous national bestsellers-- The Splendid and the Vile, Dead Wake, In the Garden of Beasts, Thunderstruck, The Devil in the White City, and Isaac's Storm--which have collectively sold more than ten million copies. His books have been published in nearly twenty countries.

About the Southern Festival of Books:

The Southern Festival of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word is among the oldest literary festivals in the country, annually welcoming hundreds of authors and thousands of visitors to Nashville each October. Find out more at https://sofestofbooks.org/.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Paschall Theater at Montgomery Bell Academy, 4001 Harding Pike, Nashville, United States