Virginia Festival of the Book Author Event

Join us at The Center as author Karen Outen discusses her acclaimed debut novel "Dixon Descending" with Virginia Festival of the Book Director Kalela Williams. A Q&A session and book signing will follow the discussion. A Library Journal editor's pick, "Dixon Descending" is a compelling work that deals with ambition, survival, and our responsibility toward one another.

 

This Virginia Festival of the Book event is in partnership with the African American Authors Book Club and The Center Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Free and open to all.

 

Dixon Descending is well-researched. The reader is dropped into the world of ice axes and crampons, pee bottles and carabiners, feeling every lick of wind on the mountain. But the novel uses the climb itself as a framing device to explore not just what drives people to do such things, but also what the consequences are of surviving when others don’t. Outen clearly loves her characters deeply, and writes Nate and Dixon’s compelling story with love.” —Boston Globe

“Dixon, Descending, with its poignant passages, is ultimately a heart-wrenching story of great loss.” —The Christian Science Monitor

“Outen shines in her debut…credibly portrays the uncanny sensations of Dixon’s emotional and physical recovery. This one hits hard.”—Publishers Weekly