Author, Author! Two Blockbuster Writers Coming to Surfside Park in August
It’s not every day that you see a New York Times best-selling author in Avalon. But this August, you can see TWO of them when the Avalon Free Public Library hosts literary powerhouses Emily Giffin on Thursday, Aug. 11 at 11am and Adriana Trigiani on Monday, Aug. 15 at 7pm, both at Surfside Park.
“Our patrons always look forward to new releases from both Emily Giffin and Adriana Trigiani, and their latest novels have been no exception,” says Avalon Library Director Erin Brown. “We’re so pleased to be hosting both of them for the first time.”
With almost 30 books published between them, and millions of copies sold around the world, Giffin and Trigiana are popular, prolific and critically acclaimed. Their books have been translated into more than 30 languages and they’ve each had several of their books optioned for movies.
In their appearances at Surfside Park, the authors will discuss their careers and their latest novels, and sign copies of their books. Tickets are not required for these events.
Read on to learn more about Emily Giffin, Adriana Trigiani, and the inspirations behind their recently published novels.
Emily Giffin
Emily Giffin
If you’ve read Emily Giffin’s novels about flawed protagonists, complex relationships, and tangled family dynamics, it may come as a surprise to learn that she began her career as a lawyer. But in fact, she attended the University of Virginia School of Law and practiced at a large ligation firm in Manhattan for several years before becoming a full-time novelist.
And yet, she had always dreamed of being a writer. So, while she was working as a lawyer and paying down her student loans, she was also writing in her spare time. Eventually, she paid off the loans and took a giant leap of faith by moving to London to write full time.
During this time in London, Giffin wrote her first best-seller, “Something Borrowed,” published in 2004. Since then, she’s gone on to write 10 more best-selling novels, including her latest book, “Meant to Be,” which was inspired by the lives and love story of Carolyn Bessette and John F. Kennedy Jr.
“Meant to Be” explores the question, “What if … ” the couple had been able to live for decades beyond their 1996 wedding. It’s a question that has resonated with Giffin ever since the tragic plane crash that claimed their lives.
“I watched the coverage all day in a state of shock and disbelief, refusing to believe that they were gone, holding out dumb hope that John would suddenly appear with his trademark goofy grin and another one of his crazy stories. Of course, that never happened, and the loss of those young people has haunted me ever since,” she has said.
And while her interest is personal, Giffin believes that the allure of the Kennedy family is somewhat universal: “I think the reason so many of us remain fascinated with the Kennedys is not just because of their fame, glamour, and political influence, but because so many of their most intimate moments — both celebratory and tragic — have been on full display for the public, which makes it seem like we knew them. That kind of perceived intimacy forges a personal connection that goes beyond superficial, fleeting celebrity intrigue.”
In “Meant to Be,” Giffin explores the star-crossed love story of Joe, a restless, famous heir to a family dynasty and Cate, an enigmatic beauty with a complex past. The parallels with the real-life couple who inspired the book are strong, yet the story remains entirely fictional.
Still, Giffin feels the weight of responsibility in reimagining a past that so closely mirrors a real-life couple and a future they never realized.
“Anytime you’re drawing details from real-life people, especially two who were so famous and beloved, it’s a huge responsibility to be respectful to their memory,” she has said. “That said, the beauty of writing fiction is that you can reimagine what it was like to be inside that high-profile relationship, and to write a story based on your imagination.”
To learn more about “Meant to Be” and author Emily Giffin, come to her event on Aug. 11 at 11am at Surfside Park in Avalon.
Adriana Trigiana
Adriana Trigiani
When she was 15, Adriana Trigiani got her first professional writing job as a news reporter on WNVA radio in Virginia. From that experience, she realized that she preferred writing for the theater, where her creativity and imagination were untethered. Luckily for her fans, that freedom of expression resulted in a prolific career that has seen her become not only the best-selling author of 20 critically acclaimed books, but also an award-winning playwright, a television writer and producer, and a documentary filmmaker.
In fact, Trigiani’s career as a novelist began after years as a writer for TV and theater, “I fell in love with the form after spending about 10 years as a dramatist – in theater and then as a television producer,” she explains. “I made a documentary film about the people of Roseto, Pa., and it had a deep effect on me. I wanted to tell stories about families in their communities and how they survived by the labor of their own hands.”
Telling stories about families, including her own, has become one of the hallmarks of Trigiani’s novels. “Every sentence I write is about family,” she says. “I believe that a family is only as strong as their stories. Home is the place we learn how to love, communicate, and live. We learn our value in the home and what to value in the world. We learn for good or for ill, how to treat one another, compete and thrive. We learn how to tell the truth, or how to bury it. We learn how to keep the faith, however we define it. As an artist, it’s the well I return to for inspiration because memory is potent; it’s not simply a perception of the past, it is alive in the moment. Family is a timeless theme in art because it has been with us from the beginning of time.”
In her newest novel, “The Good Left Undone,” Trigiani tells an intricate, sweeping tale of the Cabrelli family that spans 100 years and takes readers from the coastal town of Viareggio, Italy to the shores of Marseille, from the depths of wartime Liverpool to the mysterious beauty of Scotland. The book links mystery, love, and legacy through three generations of Cabrelli women and sheds light on a real-life wartime tragedy that was almost lost to history.
“There are several fonts of inspiration behind ‘The Good Left Undone,’” she says. “I missed my grandmothers and mother, so I wanted to write about a line of women in a family, with the men in the family of equal importance, because it is told through the eyes of the women who loved them. But I found the heartbeat of the story, the one that crosses all borders, when I was hired to direct a movie in Scotland in 2018 … and a priest encouraged me to visit the cathedral garden dedicated to the victims of the Arandora Star [a British passenger ship sunk by a German U-boat in 1940]. The story in ‘The Good Left Undone’ was not erased from history. It was barely written.”
No doubt, Trigiani has much more to reveal about the story behind her latest novel, as well as her writing, career, and world travels. And she is eager to share it all with the audience in Avalon. “My beloved Avalonians will get the full Adriana!” she enthuses. “This will be a night about family, friendship, and fabulousness.”
Adriana Trigiani will appear Aug. 15 at 7pm at Surfside Park. Bring a blanket or chair. In case of inclement weather, the event will more to Community Hall.
Writers…and Friends
Coming to Avalon within days of each other, Emily Giffin and Adriana Trigiani are part of a supportive community of female authors writing contemporary fiction today. In fact, they’ve recently interviewed each other as part of their own respective book clubs (Giffin’s egbookclub on Instagram and Trigiani’s Adriana Ink on Facebook). In short, they’re more than colleagues, they’re friends.
“I absolutely adore Adriana,” says Giffin. “In addition to being a prolific, gifted storyteller, Adri radiates warmth and positivity and has done so much to help other authors promote their work. I’m grateful for her friendship.”
The feeling from Trigiani is quite mutual: “Emily is a superb writer and a beloved friend. She brings a story alive with veracity and humor and pathos. I adore her! I’m thrilled she’s coming to Avalon. And her new novel is spectacular.”
Beyond their own relationship, both authors are grateful for their contemporaries who form the writer’s community in which they thrive.
“I’ve always felt that women’s fiction writers are among the most supportive in the greater literary community, which I think is borne from all of us reading each other’s works and being fans of one another,” Giffin notes. “Social media has only made that connectivity stronger, which has been so fun and gratifying to see.”
Trigiani shares those sentiments.
“Women authors are like women in any other profession – we are stronger, better, wiser and better when we unite and put our energy and support behind our fellow writers and their books, stories and poems,” she says. “The relationships we have only grow over time, and I can stand back now, 22 years in, and see that women authors are now a collective force. And for anyone reading this who wants to join us, write your book. Write your book. Fifty percent of history has gone unwritten because women are not in it. Put your story out there. It needs to be told.”
