The Savannah Book Festival was moved up a week, so it ended up competing with Super Bowl weekend instead of Presidents’ Day weekend. There’s no word yet on what the change might have meant for attendance. Saturday's weather was perfect for walking between the seven speaker venues and grabbing a bite from one of the food trucks.
I did not attend Anna Quindlen's opening address or Sebastian Junger's keynote address, but my friend, Allison Smith, did. Here is her input:
“Anna Quindlen's book, AFTER ANNIE, explores what happens when someone, in this case a young mother named Annie, is suddenly gone, and the different ways that family members and close friends cope. Quindlen spoke eloquently about relationships, along with losing her own mother at age 19 and how it shaped her for the rest of her life.
“Sebastian Junger, author of IN MY TIME OF DYING, shared intimate details of his many brushes with death, the most recent and horrifying being a ruptured aneurysm. It left him an emotional wreck, robbing him of his self-confidence and feeling as though he could die at any time, even as his physical wounds were healing. A self-proclaimed atheist, he shared his near-death experience and visions with the audience, reminding all to choose life every day.
“Both speakers' pay-to-hear presentations were sold out.”
Festival Saturday features 40 or so authors speaking individually or in panels. Every session is free. Venues for popular speakers fill up quickly, as was the case for Scott Turow, who has brought back Rusty Sabich, his lead character from PRESUMED INNOCENT 38 years ago, to star in PRESUMED GUILTY as a --- gulp! --- 77-year-old who comes out of retirement to defend his fiancée's son when he is accused of murdering his girlfriend.
Turow talked about being blessed. When he was only 10, he told anyone who would listen that he was going to be a novelist. He eventually went from being an assistant prosecutor to a bestselling author in just one year. His advice to would-be novelists: “Just do it [write]” (he told Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, that Nike stole his motto) and find a theme that has wide appeal. His first attempt at writing, a nonfiction manuscript about being a first-year law student, bombed, but his realization that “everyone is attracted to crime and the notion that crime doesn't pay” led to PRESUMED INNOCENT and “turned out to be the rocket ship that took me to incredible heights.”
Turow’s inspiration for PRESUMED GUILTY: First, wondering what had happened to Rusty, “the man who changed my life.” Second, the rural setting where Rusty was living, similar to Turow's vacation home in Wisconsin. Third, wondering, after a friend wrote a similar story, what happens to a family whose child is accused of a major crime.
Turow is a champion of audiobooks: “If we're lucky, that's how we first heard books, with our mothers reading to us.”
Another author, Keren Blankfeld, spoke about her nonfiction book, LOVERS IN AUSCHWITZ. Here, she tells the incredible story of two inmates in the notorious Nazi death camp who managed to pursue a romance, go on to lead fully separate lives, and reunite late in life. Blankfeld grew up in Brazil, the granddaughter of four survivors of the Holocaust. One grandmother spent more than 600 days hiding in a cellar with others and, upon being freed, had to learn to walk and speak aloud again. A grandfather in Ukraine saw his mother and sister murdered.
“I was fascinated with the concept of new beginnings. How do you start over when you've lost everything --- your home, your family, your clothes, and even your name?”
Blankfeld, who listened to thousands of hours of survivors' memoirs as part of her research, said she was amazed by their resilience and that they could teach so much about humanity. “There were moments that were unbearable to write about,” she told the audience, “But what came across was the power of connections to save us and bring us hope. Even under horrible circumstances, we don't lose the ability to love.”
