Open Book presents Martha Conway

Join award-winning author Martha Conway as she discusses the newest novel in her Ohio Trilogy, "The Underground River."

Bio:

Martha Conway is the author of several novels, including Thieving Forest, which won the North American Book Award in Historical Fiction and an Independent Publishers Book Award. It has been called “extraordinary” by the Akron Beacon Journal and “hypnotic” by Kirkus Reviews. Her first novel was nominated for an Edgar Award, and her short fiction has appeared in the Iowa Review, Mississippi Review, The Quarterly, Carolina Quarterly, and other publications. Martha has reviewed fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Iowa Review, and is a recipient of a California Arts Council fellowship in Creative Writing. Her novel Sugarland was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2016.

Synopsis of The Underground River:

It’s 1838, and May Bedloe works as a seamstress for her self-absorbed cousin, the actress Comfort Vertue—until their steamboat sinks on the Ohio River and both must find new employment. Comfort is hired by noted abolitionist, Flora Howard, to give lectures for her cause, and May finds work with a delightfully eccentric theater troupe that performs on a flatbed riverboat along the uneasy border between the northern states and southern, slave-holding states.

All goes well until May encounters her cousin and Mrs. Howard again. She owes a debt to Mrs. Howard, who takes advantage of May’s vulnerability to enlist her in a secret network of abolitionists. Now May is compelled to break the law, deceive her new friends, and deflect the suspicions of a slave catcher who has begun to take interest in her. But when one of May’s missions takes a surprising turn, she has no choice but to put her unsuspecting friends in danger as she walks the fine line between what is morally right and what is lawful.

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