This summer, Code Switch is laser-focused on books that teach us about freedom. Today, we're in conversation with a romance novelist whose own identity helped inform a rich cast of characters.
(Image credit: Eric Kieu)
William Gardner Smith wrote the story of a Black writer who, like Smith himself, moved to Paris to pursue a freedom he couldn't find in America. New York Review Books is releasing a new edition.
Messy and floundering in late midlife, Dana Spiotta's heroine is roiling — along with the rest of the country — amid the 2016 election and the rise of the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements.
(Image credit: Penguin Random House)