Stories of survival and resilience
Feb 23 virtual author event: A gripping American story of survival
“Eugene Smith’s compelling autobiography testifies to the author’s tenacious, long-term struggle to survive the soul-searing effects of the Jonestown tragedy and to forge a life-affirming prophetic witness in the aftermath.” - William L. Andrews, Adams Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Join Eugene Smith, author of Back to the World: A Life after Jonestown (whose collaborator was Blue Ear Books publisher Ethan Casey; published by TCU Press) for a virtual event hosted by the Princeton Public Library at 7pm ET/4pm PT on Wednesday, February 23, 2022.
Register here to attend the event, or visit the Princeton Public Library’s calendar listing. Here is the library’s text promoting the event:
Author Eugene Smith discusses his memoir Back to the World: A Life After Jonestown with Christopher Fisher of The College of New Jersey’s history department.
Eugene Smith lost his mother, wife and infant son in the mass murder-suicide at Jonestown, Guyana, on Nov. 18, 1978. Repatriated by the U.S. authorities on New Year’s Eve, he broke a $50 bill stashed in his shoe to buy breakfast for himself and a fellow survivor. Approximately 70% of those who died at Jonestown were Black and yet Back to the World: A Life After Jonestown is the first book-length memoir of Peoples Temple by a Black man. The author will be in discussion with Christopher Fisher a faculty member in the history department at The College of New Jersey.
Returning to California at age 21, Smith faced the daunting challenge of building from scratch a meaningful and self-sufficient life in the American society he thought he had left behind. “My first responsibility as a survivor,” he writes, “was not to embarrass my mother or my wife or my child, and to set an example that can’t be questioned.” Smith’s story is that of a double survival: first of the destruction of the idealistic but tragically flawed Peoples Temple community, then of its aftermath.
Having survived, Smith has hard questions for today’s America. This is a memoir with powerful relevance to the deeply polarized America of today.
Coming soon from Blue Ear Books
In Stories from the Front: Pain, Betrayal, and Resilience on the MST Battlefield, Bronze Star-decorated combat commander Colonel Lisa Carrington Firmin outlines her own experiences with military sexual trauma (MST) and recounts the stories of 13 others: veterans as well as active duty women and men who are bravely sharing their stories of sexual assault and sexual harassment while serving in the United States military. Stories from the Front authentically captures experiences and carefully tells their stories of trauma and the resilience and empowerment they display in their lives.
By including the lived experiences of a diverse group representing all military branches, ranks, eras of service, wars, races and ethnicities, from Vietnam through Iraq and Afghanistan to the present day, Stories from the Front documents how men and women suffered at the hands of their fellow sailors, coasties, airmen, soldiers, and Marines. Eerily similar in the retelling, their experiences with MST range from hazing, bullying, misogyny, and sexual harassment to sexual assault and rape. They recount their most painful experiences and open their hearts and souls to the author and to the world. Many of the book’s participants have never previously shared the full details of their MST experiences or spoken publicly before.
Stories from the Front will be published April 22, 2022, to mark the second anniversary of the murder of the soldier Vanessa Guillén at Ford Hood, Texas. You can support the book’s publication and mission by pre-purchasing your copy via this link.
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