BRENDAN SLOCUMB TO BE IN RICHARDSON SEPT. 24
Richardson Reads One Book is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2024, and Brendan Slocumb’s “Symphony of Secrets” has been chosen as the book to mark this occasion. The 2023 novel, Slocumb’s second, was praised as one of the best books of 2023 by the
Washington Post and NPR, among others.
The novel is split between two time periods: present-day and the distant past (1918-1936). In the past, struggling musician Frederick Delaney is trying to make a name for himself in New York, performing with a jazz band and working at a music publisher. He meets Josephine Reed, who lives on the streets but hears beautiful music surrounding her everywhere she goes. With talented Josephine as his inspiration, Delaney finds his career taking off.
In present-day New York, Bern Hendricks, an expert on the famous composer Frederick Delaney, is getting a dream opportunity. He’s been asked by the Delaney Foundation to help them authenticate a piece of music that may be from Delaney’s long-lost opera. He’s thrilled at the chance, but he and his tech-savvy friend Eboni soon learn there is more to the story. The two end up with more and more doubts as they dig through the past, and eventually commit to discovering the whole truth.
Slocumb was raised in Fayetteville, N.C. and is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a degree in music education. For the past two decades he has been a public and private school music educator from kindergarten through 12th grade and serves as an educational consultant for the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He published his first novel, “The Violin Conspiracy,” in 2022 and is now at work on his third novel, to be published in early 2025.
RROB will host Slocumb for an author lecture and book signing on Tuesday, Sept. 24 at 7:30 p.m. The event will take place at First United Methodist Church Richardson, 503 N. Central Expy. Tickets will be available beginning Tuesday, Sept. 10 at 9 a.m. Visit www.cor.net/OneBook for more details.
If you are interested in reading “Symphony of Secrets,” it is available at the Richardson Public Library in regular print and large print, as well as eAudiobook (MP3) and eBook, which can be checked out through the Library’s website. Public discussion groups, as well as those by book clubs, have been scheduled along with some other special events that can be found at www.cor.net/OneBook. The discussions and events are intended to encourage dialogue among readers.
One Book/One Community is a nationwide reading program created to develop a community built around the shared experience of reading and talking about the same book—a work selected for its general interest and timely thought-provoking issues. The Richardson Public Library joined with various organizations in Richardson to hold the first RROB program in September 2004. The book chosen for its inaugural project was “Pay It Forward” by Catherine Ryan Hyde.
For more information, call 972-744-4350 or visit www.cor.net/OneBook. Richardson Reads One Book is also on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RROBTX.
