Author Adam Ross talks Mr. Peanut at Belmont University

This Wednesday, April 13, Belmont University is hosting an Author Talk with Nashville’s own Adam Ross. Ross is the bestselling author of Mr. Peanut – a daring and intoxicating look inside the maze of a relationship on the edge. Ross’s genuine and fully formed characters walk the line as worlds collide, truth turns into a hanging participle and mystery weaves fear and love through the fibers of marriage. 

The novel that scared Stephen King, Mr. Peanut has been described by King as: “The most riveting look at the dark side of marriage since Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” 

A consistently anti anti-love story, Mr. Peanut manages to elevate storytelling to a higher art, while drawing readers in and awakening a landscape of companionship all its own. 

[Book description per the author’s website]

David Pepin has been in love with his wife, Alice, since the moment they met in a uni­ver­sity sem­i­nar on Alfred Hitch­cock. After thir­teen years of mar­riage, he still can’t imag­ine a remotely happy life with­out her—yet he obses­sively con­tem­plates her demise. Soon she is dead, and David is both deeply dis­traught and the prime suspect.

The detec­tives inves­ti­gat­ing Alice’s sus­pi­cious death have plenty of per­sonal expe­ri­ence with con­ju­gal enig­mas: Ward Has­troll is hap­pily mar­ried until his wife inex­plic­a­bly becomes vol­un­tar­ily and mil­i­tantly bedrid­den; and Sam Shep­pard is espe­cially sen­si­tive to the intri­ca­cies of mar­i­tal guilt and inno­cence, hav­ing decades before been con­victed and then exon­er­ated of the bru­tal mur­der of his wife.

Still, these men are in the busi­ness of fig­ur­ing things out, even as Pepin’s role in Alice’s death grows ever more con­found­ing when they link him to a highly unusual hit man called Mobius. Like the Escher draw­ings that inspire the com­puter games David designs for a liv­ing, these com­plex, inter­lock­ing dra­mas are struc­turally and emo­tion­ally intense, sub­tle, and intrigu­ing; they bril­liantly explore the war­ring impulses of affec­tion and hatred, and pose a host of arrest­ing ques­tions. Is it pos­si­ble to know any­one fully, com­pletely? Are mur­der and mar­riage two sides of the same coin, each end­lessly recy­cling into the other? And what, in the end, is the truth about love?

A ride worth taking, Ross will be discussing Mr. Peanut and offering readers more than a glance into the mind of an author.   

Pick up a copy of Mr. Peanut, get lost in the story, then head over to Belmont University at 7 pm on Wed., April 13 for a night of invention and creativity. 

For more information, contact Rachel Scott at Rachel.scott@belmont.edu. 

Visit Adam Ross at: http://adam-ross.com/