Radio Bristol Book Club

Tune in to WBCM Radio Bristol as our Book Club explores Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson.

Date: Thursday, March 25, 2021

Time: 11:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. EST

Location: Tune in to WBCM Radio Bristol

Readers from Birthplace of Country Music Museum and the Bristol Public Library are coming together to explore books inspired by our region with this monthly program that airs on WBCM Radio Bristol. 

Hosted by Bristol Public Library Executive Director Tonia Kestner and Birthplace of Country Music Museum Head Curator Dr. René Rodgers, the Radio Bristol Book Club airs monthly every 4th Thursday.

Book discussions will dig deep into the feelings and questions raised by each selection, learn more about the authors, and celebrate the joys of being a bookworm!

Anyone can be a member of the Radio Bristol Book Club. Check out the selection at your local library and read the book prior to show, and participate in discussion by sending your questions and comments via email to info@birthplaceofcountrymusic.org with the subject line “Radio Bristol Book Club Discussion.”

Listeners may tune in to Radio Bristol at 100.1 FM in the Bristol area, online at ListenRadioBristol.org, or download the free Radio Bristol mobile app.

As the Dead Sit Talking

Set in rural Oklahoma during the late 1980s, Where the Dead Sit Talking is a startling, authentically voiced and lyrically written Native American coming-of-age story.

With his single mother in jail, Sequoyah, a fifteen-year-old Cherokee boy, is placed in foster care with the Troutt family. Literally and figuratively scarred by his mother’s years of substance abuse, Sequoyah keeps mostly to himself, living with his emotions pressed deep below the surface. At least until he meets seventeen-year-old Rosemary, another youth staying with the Troutts.

Sequoyah and Rosemary bond over their shared Native American background and tumultuous paths through the foster care system, but as Sequoyah’s feelings toward Rosemary deepen, the precariousness of their lives and the scars of their pasts threaten to undo them both.

Finalist for the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction
Finalist for the 2019 SFC Literary Prize
Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award
Longlisted for the 2019 Aspen Words Literary Prize
NPR’s Code Switch Best Books of 2018
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018
A Southern Living Best Book of 2018
2018 Reading the West Book Award Winner for Fiction
2019 In the Margins Book Award Top Fiction Novel

About the Author

Brandon Hobson is the author of four novels. His novel, Where the Dead Sit Talking, was a National Book Award finalist. He earned a Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University and teaches creative writing at New Mexico State University and at the Institute of American Indian Arts.