In Conversation: David S. Mitchell and Dave Baron

Join us on January 14th at 7:00pm for Dave Baron and David Mitchell as they discuss Mitchell's debut novel WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS. In his first novel, WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS, David Mitchell explores how inaction by Democrats and progressives in the years following Barack Obama's 2008 election led to a missed opportunity: the chance to deliver the change we all voted for in 2008 when we cast our votes for Barack Obama. Through the eyes of his main character, an intelligent though troubled recent law grad named Al Carpenter, David pulls back the curtain on the experience of a young African-American male as he navigates the complex web of race and politics in a 2010 US Senate race in North Carolina. In the process, the reader finds—in colorful detail—that African-Americans hold the power to drive political outcomes that can galvanize the kind of economic and social opportunities our parents’ and grandparents’ generations worked so hard to make possible. The novel is timely as we begin to think through the legacy of Barack Obama and take account of all the progress we made—and the substantial amount we left on the table too. David Baron is the author of the acclaimed book PEMBROKE: A RURAL, BLACK COMMUNITY ON THE ILLINOIS DUNES. Alvin B. Tillery, Jr. of Northwestern University called it "A must read for anyone interested in understanding the roots of the racial gaps that plague post–Civil Rights America.”