Book Launch - Theodore Wheeler - The War Begins in Paris

Date and Time for this Past Event

• Friday, Nov 17, 2023  5:30pm - 6:30pm

Location

Category

Arts

Details

F&F is pleased to announce a special upcoming event you don't want to miss!

Join us on Friday, November 17th as we are joined by fellow Nebraskan and author Ted Wheeler! He will be presenting his new book The War Begins in Paris published by Little Brown and Company!

About the Book:
From Theodore Wheeler, the acclaimed author of Kings of Broken Things and 2020 NEA fellowship winner.

Paris, 1938. Two women meet: Mielle, a shy pacifist and shunned Mennonite who struggles to fit in with the elite cohort of foreign correspondents stationed around the city; the other, Jane, a brash, legendary American journalist, who is soon to become a fascist propagandist. When World War II makes landfall in the City of Light, Mielle falls under Jane’s spell, growing ever more intoxicated by her glamour, self-possession, and reckless confidence. But as this recklessness devolves into militarism and an utter lack of humanity, Mielle is seized by a series of visions that show her an inescapable truth: Jane Anderson must die, and Mielle must be the one to kill her. Structured as a series of dispatches filed from around Europe and based on the misadventures of a real journalist-turned-Nazi mouthpiece, The War Begins in Parisis a cat-and-mouse suspense that examines the relentlessness of propaganda, the allure of power, and how far one woman will go for the sake of her morality

About the Author:
Theodore Wheeler is the author of three novels: The War Begins in Paris (Little Brown, 2023), Kings of Broken Things (Little A, 2017), and In Our Other Lives (Little A, 2020). His writing has been featured in The Southern Review, The Kenyon Review, Boulevard, Narrative, LitHub, and many more journals. He has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Nebraska Arts Council, and Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany. He has received residencies and support from institutions including the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, AWP Intro Journals Award, Nebraska Book Awards.

For fourteen years Theodore worked as a journalist who covered law and politics, including the last two presidential elections, and now teaches creative writing in the English Department at Creighton University. He is also director of Omaha Lit Fest and, with his wife, operates Dundee Book Company, an independent neighborhood bookshop. For more information, visit www.theodore-wheeler.com

Praise for the book:
“Wheeler’s rich blending of Elisabeth’s grief over her lost husband and isolation from her family with transcripts from Schwaller’s investigation slowly builds an inviting tale. Readers will be intrigued by Wheeler’s provocative juxtaposition of extremism in both Christian and Muslim ideologies.” –Publishers Weekly

“Propulsive, immersive, and beautifully rendered, Wheeler…deftly illuminates themes of friendship, love, sacrifice, and heroism, and shows us how loyalty and conviction can move in unpredictable patterns under wartime duress. This is a major gut-punch of a novel, and I, for one, am thankful it exists.” – James Han Mattson, author of Reprieve

“An exhilarating rush of a novel, The War Begins in Paris tells the story of a woman torn between what is right and what is easy. With sharp, propulsive prose, Theodore Wheeler’s third novel is a tender search for courage and humanity in the face of the unthinkable.” – Jenny Tinghui Zhang, author of Four Treasures of the Sky