Benjamin Hedin in conversation with Jessica Handler - Under The Spell In-Store Event

Benjamin Hedin in conversation with Jessica Handler - Under The Spell In-Store Event

Thursday, Aug 19, 2021 7:00 PM

Location:
A Cappella Books
208 Haralson Ave. NE
Atlanta, GA 30307

A Cappella Books welcomes Grammy-nominated writer and producer Benjamin Hedin to celebrate the release of his acclaimed debut novel, “Under the Spell.” Hedin will appear in conversation with Atlanta’s own Jessica Handler, award-winning author of “The Magnetic Girl.”

This event is free and open to the public, and we’ll be serving light bites and drinks on our back patio.

If you are unable to attend the event, you may pre-order a signed copy of the book. 

About the Book

“Under the Spell” is the first novel by Benjamin Hedin, a dazzling new voice in American fiction. 

Newly widowed Sandra is searching her husband’s email for financial information when she discovers a correspondence between him and a woman named Ryan. Rather than simply sharing the news of the death, Sandra, who is shocked and hungry for details, instead impersonates her husband as she writes back to Ryan. This bold course of action will expose the secrets and solitude within her marriage, prompting her to reconsider everything she once held dear.

Unmoored and seeking connection, Sandra also meets Lee, a single mother with a drinking problem, and begins babysitting her daughter. But Sandra can’t stop herself from continuing the correspondence with Ryan, in the process uncovering more about her husband—and Ryan herself. A novel that forces us to question how much of a person, even those closest to us, remains obscure, “Under the Spell” reveals the astonishing, transformative power of grief. This compelling study in bereavement joins classics such as Don DeLillo’s “The Body Artist” and Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking.”

About the Author

Benjamin Hedin has written for the New Yorker, Time, the Atlantic, the Nation, the Chicago Tribune, Poets and Writers, Salmagundi, The Georgia Review, and many other publications. He is the author of the novel “Under the Spell” as well as the nonfiction chronicle “In Search of the Movement: The Struggle for Civil Rights Then and Now.” He also edited the anthology “Studio A: The Bob Dylan Reader.”

Hedin wrote and produced the documentaries “Two Trains Runnin’” and “MLK/FBI.” For these films he was honored with Grammy and IDA Award nominations, and “MLK/FBI” won the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Historical Documentary.

He has taught at New York University, the New School, and the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.