Kaitlyn Greenidge, the Fall 2017 Visiting Writer for the M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing, is the next speaker in this fall’s Raymond Carver Reading Series. On Wednesday, Oct. 11, she will participate in a Q&A at 3:45 p.m. and then read from her work at 5:30 p.m. in Huntington Beard Crouse Hall’s Gifford Auditorium.
Her debut novel, “We Love You, Charlie Freeman” (Algonquin Books, 2017), was named one of the New York Times Critics’ Top 10 Books.
Kaitlyn Greenidge
In “We Love You, Charlie Freeman,” the Freeman family—Charles, Laurel and their daughters, teenage Charlotte and nine-year-old Callie—have been invited to the Toneybee Institute to participate in a research experiment. They will live in an apartment on campus with Charlie, a young chimp abandoned by his mother. The Freemans were selected because they know sign language; they are supposed to teach it to Charlie and welcome him as a member of their family. But when Charlotte discovers the truth about the institute’s history of questionable studies, the secrets of the past invade the present in devious ways.
USA Today writes of the book: “…witty and provocative … Greenidge deftly handles a host of complex themes and characters, exploring not just how (literally) institutionalized racism is, but the difficulty of an effective response to it. … Greenidge doesn’t march to a pat answer; the power of the book is in her understanding of how clarity wriggles out of reach. For all the seriousness of its themes, though, ‘Charlie Freeman’ is also caustically funny.”
Greenidge’s writing has appeared in American Short Fiction, the Believer, Buzzfeed, Elle.com, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Transition Magazine and Virginia Quarterly Review. She is a contributing writer for LENNY Letter.
The Raymond Carver Reading Series is presented by the M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Sciences. All events are free and open to the public. Parking is available in SU pay lots.
