Episode 20 --- Kaitlyn Greenidge
Kaitlyn Greenidge's debut novel, We Love You, Charlie Freeman, is full of compelling characters and has the most unique premise of any book I read this year.
It's about the Freemans, a Black family in the early 90s that picks up and leaves their life in the Boston area behind to move to a rural part of Massachusetts to take part in a unique experiment. They take up residence at the Toneybee Institute for Ape Research with a chimp named Charlie, and they're charged with teaching him American Sign Language while treating him like a member of the family.
The novel also goes back in time to the 1920s where we meet a character named
Nymphadora, who was involved with the Toneybee during its early days.
I caught up with Kaitlyn this fall at the Miami Book Fair, and she was super thoughtful and wonderful to talk to during our interview.
Interview Highlights:
Kaitlyn reveals...
- why she wanted to write about moments when language fails
- how a lecture she attended gave her the idea for the novel
- why she enjoys writing about sibling relationships
- the novel she read to research the history of racist scientific experiments in the U.S.
Click here to listen to the podcast.
We have a free, signed copy of We Love You, Charlie Freeman to give away. It will go to the first listener to tell us which former ReadMore guest Kaitlyn gives a shoutout to during our interview. You can contact us through Facebook or Twitter (@ReadMorePodcast) to provide the answer.
If you have won a ReadMore giveaway in the last 90 days, you're ineligible for this contest. Also, if you and I ever walked from Morrison to North Campus together, you're probably ineligible. ReadMore does not have a friends and family plan! But we'll always have perfection in musicianship, precision in marching and quality in character.
You can also support ReadMore when you buy this book from Amazon.com using the link below:
UPDATE 1/2/17 --- On December 30, Maounda Christopher reached out to us on Twitter to answer our trivia question and won a free, signed copy of We Love You, Charlie Freeman. Congratulations, Maounda, who is also our second winner from Barbados!