"Ghosts of Walden" Reading April 2

Dr. Jack Hussey will read from and sign copies of his new book, "The Ghosts of Walden," at 7 p.m., Thursday, April 2, in the Brooks Gallery in Wallman Hall on the Fairmont State University and Pierpont Community & Technical College shared main campus.

Hussey is Professor Emeritus of English at Fairmont State, where he taught film and American literature from 1971 until his retirement in 2005. The event is sponsored by the FSU Department of Language & Literature and by "Kestrel: A Journal of Arts and Literature."

"The Ghosts of Walden" is a collection of three short novels about life in 19th century Concord, Mass. The stories depict the town's famous writers, R.W. Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Louisa May Alcott, as well as dozens of their less famous neighbors: reformers, drunks, preachers, shopkeepers, runaway slaves, rich Yankees and the poor Irish. All of them contend with their own demons, as well as the great social challenges of their age: slavery, the status of women, temperance, the new railroads and the flood of Irish immigrants.  

Hussey's book is published by Virtual Bookworm Publishers. Copies will be available at the signing event, at the FSU and Pierpont Bookstore, at the regional Borders and Barnes and Noble stores and through Amazon.com. The signing is open to the public.