Author, screenwriter and Castine resident Jeff Lewis will read from his newest novel, Land of Cockaigne, on Novmber 11th at 7 p.m. at Emerson Hall in Castine. Books may be preordered at Compass Rose Books, and copies will be available at the event.

This is the story of a couple determined not to become a statistic (16% of all marriages don’t survive the death of a child) and a town that wants to support them at the same time it wants to protect itself from people from whom it doesn’t need protection, Jeffrey Lewis’s Land of Cockaigne is at once a mirror and a cautionary tale, a parable and a prayer—and a reminder that “Love is an action, not a feeling.”

JEFFREY LEWIS has won a string of awards for his novels including the Independent Publishers Gold Medal for Literary Fiction, the Independent Publishers Gold Medal for General Fiction, and the ForeWord Silver Medal for Fiction. His most recent book, Bealport: A Novel of a Town, was a 2019 Maine Literary Awards finalist. He has also received two Emmy Awards and the Writers Guild of America Award, as well as ten additional Emmy nominations and six additional Writers Guild nominations, for his work as a television writer—most notably for Hill Street Blues—and producer. A winner of the Humanitas Prize, the People’s Choice Award, a GLAAD Media Award, two NAACP Image Awards, and a Golden Globes nomination, he divides his time between Maine and Los Angeles.