Join us Saturday, July 2nd at noon for Blue Bicycle Books Charleston Author Series luncheon at Halls Chophouse, when award-winning writer Bronwen Dickey, presents her just-released book Pit Bull.
Tickets are only $30 for the author talk and delicious three-course luncheon, or $57 that includes the luncheon plus a signed, hardcover copy of Pit Bull. Halls Chophouse is located at 434 King Street in downtown Charleston. Of course, there is a full-service cash bar for your enjoyment.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR TICKETS NOW
About the Book:
When Bronwen Dickey brought her new dog home, she saw no traces of the infamous viciousness in her affectionate, timid pit bull. Which made her wonder: how had the breed—beloved by Teddy Roosevelt, Helen Keller, TV's "Little Rascals"—come to be known as a brutal fighter.
Her search for answers takes her from nineteenth-century New York City dog-fighting pits — the cruelty of which helped spark the founding of the ASPCA — to early 20th-century movie sets where pit bulls cavorted with Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton; from the battlefields of Gettysburg and the Marne, where mascot pit bulls inspired American troops, to desolate urban neighborhoods where the dogs were brutalized.
Whether through love or fear, hatred or devotion, humans are bound to the history of the pit bull. With unfailing thoughtfulness, compassion, and a firm grasp of scientific fact, Dickey offers us a clear-eyed portrait of this extraordinary breed, and an insightful view of Americans' relationship with their dogs.
"A thoughtful examination of pit bulls and an intense look at ourselves and society. Dickey adeptly scrutinizes the science used to condemn pit bulls to separate fact from fiction and thus weaves a narrative that artfully relays both the hard science and the emotion of the pit bull issue . . . This exceptional, thoroughly researched, and expertly written work is a must.” ---Library Journal (starred review)
About the Author:
Bronwen Dickey is the youngest child of the late poet and novelist James Dickey, one of the South’s most revered writers and author of Deliverance.
She is an essayist and journalist and a contributing editor for the Oxford American. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Newsweek, Outside, Popular Mechanics, Best American Travel Writing 2009, Slate, Garden & Gun, The San Francisco Chronicle, Southern Living, World Hum, Sport Diver, and The Independent Weekly, among other publications.
In 2009 she received a first-place Lowell Thomas Award in travel journalism and a residency grant from the MacDowell Colony.
In 2013 Bronwen penned an essay The Last Wild River for Vanderbilt Magazine about the Chatooga River, the setting for her father’s famous film, Deliverance. The Chattooga is generally recognized to be the wildest, most unforgiving in Southern Appalachia.
“I wasn’t born until 10 years after Deliverance was filmed. What I knew of the river—and by extension, what I knew of Southern Appalachia—I knew only from the film and from memories of my father. I wanted to see the river while it remained, as it was called in the movie, “the last wild … river in the South,” she wrote.
She is a graduate of Duke University, where she studied American history and English literature, and Columbia University, where she received two fellowships in creative writing and taught literary nonfiction. She lives in North Carolina.
Tickets are $30 for lunch plus tax and processing fee, or $57 for lunch and a signed, hardcover copy of Pit Bull. Click here to order your tickets.
Doors open at 11:30 AM and lunch is served promptly at noon. Limited seating provides an intimate experience with the author. There is a cash bar bar for your enjoyment.
