Michelle Collins Anderson
May 4 @ 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Magic City Books is proud to welcome Michelle Collins Anderson for an event to celebrate her new novel, The Flower Sisters, inspired by the true story of one tragic night at a dance hall in the Ozarks. This free event will take place at 5:00 pm in the Algonquin Room at Magic City Books (221 E Archer Street) on Saturday, May 4.
The Flower Sisters is a beautifully written and endearingly nostalgic novel that picks up 50 years after the tragic night for a folksy, character-driven portrayal of small-town life, split second decisions, and the ways family secrets reverberate through generations.
Michelle will be joined in conversation by Carissa Kellerby from the Tulsa City-County Library.
The Flower Sisters will be published on April 23 and is available in store or online at: https://magiccitybooks.square.site/product/the-flower-sisters/2087.
About The Flower Sisters
Daisy Flowers is fifteen in 1978 when her free-spirited mother dumps her in Possum Flats, Missouri. It’s a town that sounds like roadkill and, in Daisy’s eyes, is every bit as dead. Sentenced to spend the summer living with her grandmother, the wry and irreverent town mortician, Daisy draws the line at working for the family business, Flowers Funeral Home. Instead, she maneuvers her way into an internship at the local newspaper where, sorting through the basement archives, she learns of a mysterious tragedy from fifty years earlier…
On a sweltering, terrible night in 1928, an explosion at the local dance hall left dozens of young people dead, shocking and scarring a town that still doesn’t know how or why it happened. Listed among the victims is a name that’s surprisingly familiar to Daisy, revealing an irresistible family connection to this long-ago accident.
Obsessed with investigating the horrors and heroes of that night, Daisy soon discovers Possum Flats holds a multitude of secrets for a small town. And hardly anyone who remembers the tragedy is happy to have some teenaged hippie asking questions about it – not the fire-and-brimstone preacher who found his calling that tragic night; not the fed-up police chief; not the mayor’s widow or his mistress; not even Daisy’s own grandmother, a woman who’s never been afraid to raise eyebrows in the past, whether it’s for something she’s worn, sworn, or done for a living.
Some secrets are guarded by the living, while others are kept by the dead, but as buried truths gradually come into the light, they’ll force a reckoning at last.
Inspired by the true story of the Bond Dance Hall explosion, a tragedy that took place in the author’s hometown of West Plains, Missouri on April 13, 1928.
The cause of the blast has never been determined.
“Anderson weaves a rich and poignant tale of a small Ozarks town’s factual tragedy, its generational secrets and the juxtapose of searching and belonging. Vivid and evocative, this is a debut to savor.” –Kim Michele Richardson, New York Timesbestselling author of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek series
Michelle Collins Anderson grew up on a farm in the Missouri Ozarks — a place and a way of life that has shaped her writing. A graduate of the University of Missouri with a MFA from Warren Wilson College, she previously worked in advertising and public relations, taught elementary school creative writing, and was an adjunct professor at the University of Missouri and Stephens College. She serves on the board of The Missouri Review and her short fiction has appeared in Nimrod International Journal, Literal Latté, Midwestern Gothic, Elder Mountain: A Journal of Ozarks Studies, Bosque, The Lascaux Review, Pooled Ink, Storied Hills: An Anthology of Contemporary Ozark Fiction, and other publications. A mother of three, she lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and can be found online at MichelleAnderson.me.
