12/04 Jonathon Scott Fuqua and Zakes Mda

The Marc Steiner Show is getting into the Christmas spirit with a doorbuster opportunity for you today...A twofer!  At one o'clock we're going to bring you two authors in one hour. 

First, we're talking with Jonathon Scott Fuqua.  When you were a teenager, did you ever have a book that just so perfectly captured your life or your feelings that you read it over and over again?  I did.  It was Girl, by Blake Nelson and I can't say it so much captured my life as it was the life I wished I had.  I also loved Unfinished Portrait of Jessica by Richard Peck.  Both of these books are about girls turning into women and how thorny that process can be.  Jonathon Scott Fuqua writes books like this.  They are books that come as a relief to the people reading them; finally, someone understands!  His latest book is called Gone and Back Againand is the story of Caley, a teenager whose dad has a personality disorder and whose brother is handicapped.  His parents are divorced and he's been moved all around the country, eventually ending up in Florida, which is where the novel begins.  It's a story that draws upon the author's own struggles with depression.

And then we talk with Zakes Mda.  He's a writer from South Africa whose work is really about our interactions with history and memory and how we manage those things in the middle of present life.  His latest book is Cion, and is about Toloki, the hero from a previous novel, moving to Ohio with his family and learning about his ancestors, runaway slaves. 

Join us today at one, for all that!

-Jessica