BETHEL — Maine author Jennifer Dupree will read from her book, The Miraculous Flight of Owen Leach, on Tuesday, July 11, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., at the Bethel Library. The library is located at 6 Broad Street in Bethel.

The novel asks the important question “What does it mean to be a ‘good mother,’ and who gets to decide that question?”

In the first chapter of the book, nineteen-year-old Sophia, alone and exhausted, tosses her screaming baby out of a window. A pregnant woman standing below catches Owen Leach. When the woman has a miscarriage a few days later she begins to believe that the baby she caught is meant to be hers. The Miraculous Flight of Owen Leach is told from alternating points of view of the three main characters: young mother Sophia Leach, who says she tripped and dropped the baby, baby-catcher Rose Rankin, and Rose’s husband Hank, who becomes caught between the two women.

Aaron Hamburger, the author of Nirvana is Here, wrote that “The Miraculous Flight of Owen Leach kept me riveted from the book’s stunning and dramatic opening scenes to its moving conclusion. Jennifer Dupree’s smooth prose and wide-open heart makes this a notable debut novel.”

The novel was a finalist for the National Indie Excellence Award.

Dupree is a librarian, freelance editor, and former bookstore owner. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program. Her work has appeared in Front Porch Review, Solstice, December, Wordpeace, and On the Rusk. She is the winner of the Writer’s Digest Fiction Contest for 2017 and a 2022 winner of a Maine Literary Award.

Dupree’s book is available on Bookshop.org, Amazon, at independent bookstores, and can be purchased at the event.

The Bethel Library is located at 6 Broad Street in Bethel. For more information, call 207-824-2520 or visit the library’s Facebook page or website at www.bethellibraryassociation.org.

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