Critics have called David Payne the most gifted American novelist of his generation. He is best-known for fictional works like “Confessions of A Taoist On Wall Street.”
But in the past decade he has inched farther and farther away from fiction writing and started to take the advice that he gives to his own creative writing students: “write about the hardest material.”
His new memoir “Barefoot to Avalon” (Atlantic Monthly Press/2015) tells the story of his younger brother George A. who struggled for years with bi-polar disorder and tragically died after losing control of his vehicle on the interstate.
Host Frank Stasio talks to David Payne about his brother George, and how his death shaped David’s identity.
Payne reads from his book tonightat Purple Crow Books in Hillsborough, on Thursdayat The Regulator Bookshop in Durham, and at various other bookstores throughout the state over the next two weeks.