A new historical fiction novel by Croton-on-Hudson writer Anne Dimock will be published November 8, 2022 by Woodhall Press. The Black Cow and By The Dam Books at 4 Old Post Rd South in Croton-on-Hudson will host a book launch event on Sunday November 13th from 3:00-5:00 pm. All are welcomed.
About Against the Grain
During desegregation battles in the early 1960s, one African American family in a leafy New Jersey suburb experiences barriers more quiet and hidden than in the South. That’s the backdrop of a new debut novel by Anne Dimock entitled Against the Grain (Woodhall Press).
In fictionalized Jamestown, NJ, during 1962-1964, six characters intersect in a conflict of change and complacency. Half of them want to maintain their own vision of a Jamestown idyll–a city on a hill, a pious flock, a wholesome family town. The others want change. From the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Newark riots, everyone must navigate the tremors rippling through Jamestown as they defend or re-imagine their quiet, sleepy suburb.
“I wanted to expand the view of this town, time and politics beyond my own experience and viewpoint,” says Dimock. “I wanted to more deeply engage all the questions and possibilities around religion, racism, classism, sex, boys and men, protest – all the questions I had when I was a teenager that no one would talk about. Toni Morrison said to her Princeton students, ‘Please don’t tell me about your little life – is there nothing larger? More important?’ Yes. There is.”
Dimock adds, “We know the events of the last decade that raised the stakes. I did not plan that my novel would land now at a time of social reckoning over racism, but nor does it seem accidental.”
Against the Grain is available at By The Dam Books, Amazon and other popular retail stores where books are sold.
Anne Dimock also wrote Humble Pie: Musings on What Lies Beneath the Crust, a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award and the reason Garrison Keillor called her “the Proust of pie.” An eclectic writer of plays, short stories, and essays that cover topics like women’s health, alternative sentencing, Moby Dick, Cyrano de Bergerac as a woman, and prize-winning ribald limericks, Dimock’s work has appeared on stage and in print. She resides in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. Visit www.annedimock.com.
