In Conversation: On The Lives of Edie Pritchard

John Burnham Schwartz is the bestselling author of five novels, including Northwest Corner, The Commoner, and Reservation Road, which was made into a film based on his screenplay. He has done extensive screen and television writing for the major Hollywood studios. In one of the most momentous events of the Cold War, Svetlana Alliluyeva, the only daughter of the Soviet despot Joseph Stalin, abruptly abandoned her life in Moscow in 1967, arriving in New York to throngs of reporters and a nation hungry to hear her story. By her side is Peter Horvath, a young lawyer sent by the CIA to smuggle Svetlana into America. Thus, begins a complicated story with a complicated person at its center. Excited and alienated by her adopted country’s radically different society, Svetlana decides that all she yearns for is a simple American life. But an invitation from the widow of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright leads Svetlana to join her cultlike community. When this ends in disillusionment, Svetlana reaches out to Peter. Their relationship changes and deepens, moving from America to England to the Soviet Union and back again, unfolding under the eyes of her CIA minders, and Svetlana’s and Peter’s private lives are no longer their own. Burnham Schwartz’s father was in fact the young lawyer who escorted Svetlana Alliluyeva to the United States. For The Red Daughter (Random House ) he draws on private papers and years of research to re-create the story of an extraordinary, troubled woman’s search for a

Larry Watson is the author of ten critically acclaimed books, including the bestselling Montana 1948. A film adaptation of his novel Let Him Go is currently in production. His fiction has been published internationally. His essays and book reviews have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and other periodicals. The Lives of Edie Pritchard (Algonquin Books) is a multigenerational story of the West told through the history of one woman trying to navigate life on her own terms. Edie is smart, self‑assured, beautiful and has always worked hard. She worked as a teller at a bank, she worked to save her first marriage, and later, she worked to raise her daughter even as her second marriage came apart. She just wanted a good life, but her looks defined her. Two brothers fought over her. Her second husband became unreasonably possessive and jealous. Her daughter resented her. And now, as a grandmother, Edie finds herself harassed by a younger man. The Lives of Edie Pritchard tells the story of one woman just trying to be herself, even as multiple men attempt to categorize and own her. Publishers Weekly stated that ” Watson’s vibrant character study reads like a trio of scintillating novellas, each set 20 years apart. […] Watson shows off a keen eye for regional details, a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue, and an affinity for sharp characterization. This triptych is richly rewarding.”