Parnassus Books is pleased to welcome Stephanie Clifford to celebrate her new book, The Farewell Tour, in conversation with Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show.
This is a free event which will take place IN STORE on Tuesday, March 21st at 6:30pm Central Time. Because space will be limited, registration is required to attend this event. Please register for free by filling out the form below! (Note: If for any reason you need to cancel your registration, please call the store at 615-953-2243 at least 24 hours before the event so your space can be provided to another guest.) Masks are strongly encouraged during this event.
About the Book
From the author of the New York Times bestseller Everybody Rise, a rich and riveting novel with the exquisite historical detail and evocative settings of The Cold Millions and Great Circle that tells the story of one unforgettable woman’s rise in country and western music.
“Clifford nails the character of Depression-era songbird-turned-country crooner Lillian Waters in her fabulous new novel, THE FAREWELL TOUR. I saw myself in Lillian’s journey, from the highs to the lows to the numbness, from the bench seat of a roadster rumbling across dirt roads to shiny tour buses humming down interstates. By the last chorus we learn that a life in country is a holy sacrifice to the Gods of hillbilly music—for which THE FAREWELL TOUR is a worthy offering."— Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and performer Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show
It’s 1980, and Lillian Waters is hitting the road for the very last time.
Jaded from her years in the music business, perpetually hungover, and diagnosed with career-ending vocal problems, Lillian cobbles together a nationwide farewell tour featuring some old hands from her early days playing honky-tonk bars in Washington State and Nashville, plus a few new ones. She yearns to feel the rush of making live music one more time and bask in the glow of a packed house before she makes the last, and most important, stop on the tour: the farm she left behind at age ten and the sister she is finally ready to confront about an agonizing betrayal in their childhood.
As the novel crisscrosses eras, moving between Lillian’s youth—the Depression, the Second World War, the rise of Nashville—and her middle-aged life in 1980, we see her striving to build a career in the male-dominated world of country music, including the hard choices she makes as she tries to redefine music, love, aging, and womanhood on her own terms.
Nearing her final tour stop, Lil is forced to confront those choices and how they shaped her life. Would a different version of herself have found the happiness and success that has eluded her? When she reaches her Washington hometown for her very last show, though, she’ll undergo a reckoning with the past that forces her to reconsider her entire life story.
Exploring one unforgettable woman’s creativity, ambition, and sacrifices in a world—and an art form—made for men, The Farewell Tour asks us to consider how much of our past we can ever leave behind.
About the Author
An award-winning investigative reporter as well as a novelist, Stephanie Clifford was a reporter at the New York Times for almost a decade, and continues to write features and cover stories for the Times and other publications, including The New Yorker, The Economist, the Atlantic, Elle, and Esquire. Her magazine pieces are regularly adapted for film and television, including, most recently, Lifetime and Netflix. Her first book, Everybody Rise, was a New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. She grew up in Washington State and lives in Brooklyn with her family.
About Ketch Secor
Ketch Secor is the consummate entertainer: the merry ringmaster, mischievous busker, passionate professor, modern Beat, and unassuming virtuoso, all rolled into one. Ketch is best known as the founder and frontman of Old Crow Medicine Show, a two-time Grammy Award-winning juggernaut whose triumphs include induction into the Grand Ole Opry and double-platinum certification for their iconic hit single “Wagon Wheel.” The scope and potency of Ketch’s work has long-since spilled over to include documentaries, writing and starring in variety shows, authoring a children’s book, composing a musical, and launching a school. His myriad projects also include serving as an advisor, historical consultant, and featured speaker in Ken Burns’ acclaimed 2019 documentary Country Music. “Whether I’m in front of an audience of concert-goers or a six-year-old, whether I’m using puppets or a banjo, I’m always trying to show people that they can be mesmerized by a story, by a person, by a character,” says Ketch. “By humanity, really. By one another.”
Registration: Stephanie Clifford
