© Gary L. Kravit

John Dufresne has written the novels Louisiana Power & Light, Love Warps the Mind a Little (both New York Times Notable Books of the Year), Deep in the Shade of Paradise, Requiem, Mass., No Regrets, Coyote, I Don’t Like Where This Is Going, and My Darling Boy; two story collections, The Way That Water Enters Stone and Johnny Too Bad; and four books on writing, The Lie That Tells a Truth, Is Life Like This?, Storyville, and Flash!: the Art of Writing the Very Short Story. He teaches at Florida International University.

Schedule

10:00 am to 10:45 am
State Library, Fifth Floor, Capitol View Room
Fathers and Sons: Exploring Grief, Redemption, and Family Ties
John Dufresne, My Darling Boy: A Novel
Tripp Friedler, The Tunnel: A Memoir
with moderator Clancy DuBos

11:00 am to 11:45 am
Cavalier House Books Tent
Book Signing

My Darling Boy: A Novel

A brilliant and gut-wrenching novel about a father and son from a “master” (Lee Martin) of the tragi-comic.

Known for his bold voice and unforgettable characters, John Dufresne tells the story of Olney, whose beloved son Cully collapses into addiction and vanishes into the chaotic netherworld of southern Florida. Aided by his terminally ill girlfriend and the colorful inhabitants of a local motel―including a doomsday prepper, an ex-nun, a pair of blind twins with an acute sense of smell, and a devoutly Catholic shelter worker―Olney sets out to save his son. Hilarious and devastating in equal measure, My Darling Boy is a hero’s quest for our time, a testament to families touched by the opioid crisis, and a remarkable achievement from one of our most talented, genre-bending authors.