Join me for a reading by memoirist and novelist Judith Paterson Oct 2 (Thursday) at 7 PM in the Black Box Theater (LeFevre).
Paterson will read from her latest work, Daybreak in Alabama: A Novel of Race. In this historical novel, Martha Jane “Marty” Baldwin, an 80-some-year-old woman, recounts the history of her ancestors—both black and white—going back to 1842 when they left Virginia for the new Indian lands of Alabama, reputed to turn cotton seed into gold as soon as it hit the ground.
“I come from the kind of family that gets your attention,” wrote Paterson in a summary of her work. “At some point, I became interested in the way the history of my Deep South family reflected the history of the region. The more I learned, the more intrigued I became with the way the dichotomy between the maternal and paternal sides of my family paralleled the conflicts of history, culture, and psychology that defined the state of Alabama, the Deep South, and, by extension, the country itself.”
Paterson is primarily known for her memoir, Sweet Mystery: A Book of Remembering, which describes her childhood in Alabama and the tragic death of her young mother. It was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 1996 and has been in paperback from the University of Alabama since 2001. Additionally in 1996, Paterson published “To Teach the Negro” in the Alabama Heritage. This article tells the story of her immigrant great-grandparents who started schools for freed slaves which would become predecessors to Alabama State University in Montgomery.
Paterson is a writer and a teacher of writing who grew up in Montgomery, Alabama. She taught writing, literature and journalism at Auburn University and the University of Maryland. Specializing in topics of alcoholism, mental illness and feminism, she has published four books and many articles and worked as a freelance writer for magazines and newspapers.
