"Other Voices, Other Rooms," the debut novel of New Orleans-born writer Truman Capote, is the selection for the 2023 One Book, One Festival, the Louisiana Book Festival’s popular discussion group.
The novel is celebrating its 75th anniversary. Dr. Gary Richards, who has led many previous sessions since One Book, One Festival began in 2008, returns to moderate the discussion. Participants are invited to read the same book in advance and then join the scholar-led discussion with others at the festival.
The 19th annual Louisiana Book Festival will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28, in downtown Baton Rouge at the Louisiana State Capitol, the State Library of Louisiana, Capitol Park Museum and the surrounding Capitol Park area.
The One Book, One Festival discussion will happen from 2:30 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. in Senate Committee Room E in the State Capitol.
Richards is a professor of English and former chair of the Department of English and Linguistics at the University of Mary Washington. This will be the 11th time he’s led the One Book, One Festival discussion.
“Few novels grabbed the nation’s attention in the postwar years like 'Other Voices, Other Rooms,' and I’m delighted to return to the festival, revisit this groundbreaking novel with contemporary readers, and explore Capote making his leap from the short story to the novel,” said Richards.
"Other Voices, Other Rooms" was published in 1948. The semi-autobiographical novel of Capote’s childhood focuses on a 13-year-old New Orleans boy who is sent to live with his father in rural Alabama after his mother dies.
“Truman Capote’s first novel is a story of almost supernatural intensity and inventiveness, an audacious foray into the mind of a sensitive boy as he seeks out the grown-up enigmas of love and death in the ghostly landscape of the deep South,” notes publisher Penguin Random House.
One Book, One Festival is free and open to the public.
For more on the 2023 Louisiana Book Festival, visit LouisianaBookFestival.org and follow the fest on Facebook.