NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. NEA Big Read: Pocumtuck Valley is sponsored by the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association. This series is funded in part by the Friends of Tilton Library. NEA Big Read: Pocumtuck Valley in partnership with Libraries in the Woods sponsors this discussion of Station Eleven as part of a two month long series of discussions and related programs at 20+ local libraries. Click here for a full listing: https://deerfield-ma.org/nea-big-read-pocumtuck-valley/ EMAIL TILTONLIBRARY@CWMARS.ORG FOR ZOOM LINK TO THIS BOOK DISCUSSION. Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 novel is set in a dystopian post-pandemic world. Now that we’re experiencing an actual pandemic, the NEA Big Read of this fictional story provides an opportunity for local communities to discuss our real pandemic experience, as well as the role the arts play in our lives (a central theme in Station Eleven). A National Book Award Finalist A PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end. Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.

Meets on Zoom - email tiltonlibrary@cwmars.org for Zoom link. IF WEATHER IS NICE - we may meet outside behind the library - call 413-665-4683 or email to find out that day   “Summons up a small American town at precisely the right moment in our history . . . a bold, vital, and view-expanding novel.”—George Saunders A rural working-class New England town elects as its mayor a New York hedge fund millionaire in this inspired novel for our times—fiction in the tradition of Jonathan Franzen and Jennifer Egan. A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK Mark Firth is a contractor and home restorer in Howland, Massachusetts, who feels opportunity passing his family by. After being swindled by a financial advisor, what future can Mark promise his wife, Karen, and their young daughter, Haley? He finds himself envying the wealthy weekenders in his community whose houses sit empty all winter. Philip Hadi used to be one of these people. But in the nervous days after 9/11 he flees New York and hires Mark to turn his Howland home into a year-round “secure location” from which he can manage billions of dollars of other people’s money. The collision of these two men’s very different worlds—rural vs. urban, middle class vs. wealthy—is the engine of Jonathan Dee’s powerful new novel. Inspired by Hadi, Mark looks around for a surefire investment: the mid-decade housing boom. Over Karen’s objections, and teaming up with his troubled brother, Gerry, Mark starts buying up local property with cheap debt. Then the town’s first selectman dies suddenly, and Hadi volunteers for office. He soon begins subtly transforming Howland in his image—with unexpected results for Mark and his extended family. Here are the dramas of twenty-first-century America—rising inequality, working class decline, a new authoritarianism—played out in the classic setting of some of our greatest novels: the small town. The Locals is that rare work of fiction capable of capturing a fraught American moment in real time.