Mark Powell
Mark Powell, one of the most accomplished and prolific of young Appalachian novelists, is the guest speaker in the Sunday with Friends series Sunday, Feb. 13, at 3 p.m. in the conference room of the Washington County Public Library.
Most of Powell’s seven novels are political thrillers, reminiscent of Robert Stone. “Firebird,” set during the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, takes you into the world of arms dealers, political operatives, Ivy League criminals and a hedge fund billionaire who aspires to the presidency.
His new novel, “Lioness,” deals with an act of eco-terrorism in Southwest Virginia. In the fall of 2018, a bomb goes off at a water-bottling plant, an incident the FBI declares an act of ecoterrorism. Arrested at the scene is Chris Bright, a mountain hermit with a long history of activism. Unaccounted for — and presumed dead — is Mara Wood, an installation artist who in the last two years has lost her son and left her husband.
But Mara’s estranged husband David cannot quite believe she is dead, and as he goes about reconstructing the story of what happened, he begins to imagine an alternate narrative — one in which their son doesn’t die, and his wife doesn’t leave him, one in which his wife doesn’t carry on a secret relationship with Chris Bright, a man bent on fighting back against the environmental destruction of his Appalachian home.
“Lioness” is a page-turning, heart-wrenching examination of extremism: What pushes people to act violently, and is that violence ever justified?
Powell was educated at the Citadel, University of South Carolina and Yale Divinity School. He directs the creative writing program at Appalachian State University.
Book sales and signing as well as a reception follow. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.wcpl.net.
