Leslie Pietrzyk, a local writer and AU alumna, discussed and read an excerpt from her new book Wednesday evening in Butler Board Room. Her book, "A Year and a Day," is a humorous account about a girl's grief after her mother commits suicide.
The book takes place in a small, imaginary town in Iowa, in 1975, and Alison, the main character, begins hearing her mother's voice after the suicide. Pietrzyk said the title is based on the "belief that it takes a person one year and one day to feel fine after a loved one dies, and Alice is still waiting for that day when she'll be fine."
The chapter Pietrzyk read from was a scenario of a slumber party Alison and her friends attend at a friend's house. In this comical rendition of a party, detailed with matching paper plates, napkins and tablecloth, and a Ouija board, Pietrzyk looks closer into the complexities of "fitting in" and the happiness, or unhappiness found by doing that.
Pietrzyk said she shares some similarities with the character Alison - not the death of her mother - but that she is from Iowa and went to slumber parties. Pietrzyk, who grew up in Iowa City, had not written about her home state in any of her short stories, but said that a sense of place is very important to her.
"The town [Shelby] becomes its own character and its own force."
The secrets of the town are revealed throughout the story, as well as those of Alison's mother whose voice remains present after her death.
"I'm not saying I believe in ghosts, or that I don't - I'm just saying we don't know," Pietrzyk said.
Pietrzyk said the idea behind the book was "how people that are dead are still here," and that Alison's mother talking to her represents that.
