We at Baldwin & Co are elated to bring Deesha Philyaw in for an author event to speak about her debut fiction novel.About this Event
This will be a joint event with Deesha Philyaw and Nikesha Elise Williams. They will be joined in conversation by our very own Jerid P. Woods.
From the moment Scharisse Freeman ditched her humble roots and married a megachurch pastor fifteen years her senior, she’s been labeled too brash and too “of the world” by church folks who grudgingly accepted her into their fold, and too holy by her estranged childhood bestie Petra. Schar doesn’t have many allies, but that hasn’t stopped her from building an enviable business empire spanning books to clothing to branded products, and living the comfortable life her husband's power affords her.
On the eve of her 40th birthday, Schar gets the final bit of validation she’s always dreamt of: a coveted invitation to participate in the First Lady USA pageant. This is her chance to be accepted by the other pastors’ wives—First Ladies—who are “like Jesus’ disciples if they had been a group of mean girls.” Finally, blissfully, the ice between Schar and the other First Ladies begins to thaw.
But as the pageant nears, a sensational scandal breaks with Schar at its center, and her carefully curated life implodes. Schar faces down shame and terrible secrets from her childhood and is reminded that in the eyes of the church, optics can matter more than the truth.
Unflinchingly funny, frank, and splendidly unruly, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman exults in the luscious, messy pleasure of finally feeling free.
"Deesha Philyaw has already established herself as one of the greatest short story writers, but in The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman she cements herself as the most soulfully entertaining writer of her era." - Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy and Long Division
It's 1995, and fourteen-year-old Tati desperately wants to know the identity of her father. Gossip flies fast and loose in her mother Nadia's basement salon, but when it comes to family, she's tight-lipped. Tati's grandmother, Gladys, won't tell her either; nor will Gladys tell Nadia the real reason she fled Land’s End, Alabama, in 1953.These are the first of many secrets in the matrilineal line of Dupree women. There's Jubi in 1917 who failed to pass for white when she had a dark baby, Ruby. Ruby's lust for Sampson in 1934 that leads to a baby of her own out of wedlock. And the night in 1980 that Nadia won’t speak of.
Dupree women only have daughters, a malediction passed down because of the suffering by the first of their line. None of the women know their ancestor’s enslaved or given name, only the legend of how she died: They cut off her head because she ran.
Readers will journey with Tati to uncover the identity of her father, while learning the truth of her lineage, still whispered at kitchen tables and murmured in basements, where the ritual of pressing hair happens every Saturday night.
“Through Nikesha Elise Williams’ skillful telling, THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF DUPREE grows as intricate as the braids that hold her characters’ deepest secrets and dreams. Powerful forces intermingle—legacy and loss, joy and pain, pride and shame—and by the end I felt, with the details of this epic, intergenerational story still lingering in my mind, as if I’d been invited to do exactly as one of the titular daughters describes: ‘to fellowship in the ways only women can.’”
—Dawnie Walton, author of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Story Prize, the LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. Deesha is a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, a Baldwin for the Arts Fellow, a United States Artists Fellow, and co-host of two podcasts, Ursa Short Fiction (with Dawnie Walton) and Reckon True Stories (with Kiese Laymon). She is currently at work developing TV shows based on her short fiction.
Nikesha Elise Williams is a two-time Emmy award winning producer, an award-winning author, and producer and host of the Black and Published podcast. A narrative strategist by day and journalist always, her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Bitter Southerner, Essence, and Vox. Nikesha’s work has been supported by the Kimbilio Fiction Fellowship, the DeGroot Foundation, and the Tin House Summer Workshop. A Chicago native, she lives in Florida with her family.
Event venue
1030 Elysian Fields Ave, 1030 Elysian Fields Avenue, New Orleans, United States
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