White Birch Books and the Pope Memorial Library are happy to present a lovely evening with Academy Award-winning playwright Ernest Thompson. He will be talking about his debut novel, The Book of Maps, as well as telling stories about his storied career! Books will be available for sale and the event is free and open to the public.
More about the book: In the summer of 2002, Brendan Tibbet, a filmmaker whose luck has run low, takes his ten-year-old son Brenlyn on a raucous road trip across America. Following a 1930s travel guide Brendan purchased at a yard sale, the two-week trek from LA to New Hampshire covers 16 states, hitting the iconic stops along the way, Yosemite, the Great Salt Lake, Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, replete with wild exploits both hilarious and perilous, but it’s the interior journey that is enlightening, deeply poignant and life-changing.
Brendan assures the boy that each state will be an adventure, and on the second day proves it, seeing the kid washed away in fast-moving rapids, then foolishly putting them both in danger by refusing to back down to the massive black bear invading their campsite. That’s Brendan, impetuous and foolhardy, inciting trouble wherever he goes, a man with demons and bubbling angst. But neither of those missteps, or the many and scarier ones to follow, can begin to compare to the threatening storm cloud hanging over the expedition: the father’s struggle to find the perfect, worst time to reveal to his son the news that will break his heart and affect everything to follow.
Ernest Thompson’s debut novel is a skillful, magical piece of 20th-century fin de siècle writing depicting a United States that, even in the aftermath of 9-11, seems almost innocent contrasted to the horrors and divisions, racism and rage challenging us now. The Book of Maps, with its powerful father-son relationship and one man’s relentless albeit unintentional quest to evolve into the better angel we all aspire to be, will capture the imagination of readers and leave them wanting to relive this mad, irresistibly moving, ridiculously funny, reflective and inspiring cross-country odyssey again and again.
More about Ernest Thompson: Ernest Thompson, has won an Oscar, two Golden Globes, a Writers Guild Award and a Broadway Drama Guild Award for Best Play. His work has been nominated for a Tony, an Emmy and a British Academy Award. His more than 35 plays have been seen in theatres around the world. The most enduring, On Golden Pond, has been translated into 30 languages, Arabic the newest, and played in more than 40 countries on six continents including three runs on Broadway, the most recent starring James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams.
Among other plays are The West Side Waltz (starring Katharine Hepburn and Dorothy Loudon), A Sense of Humor (Jack Lemmon and Estelle Parsons), Ax of Love, Amazons in August, Murdering Mother, White People Christmas, The Elixir, and Human Beings. His anthology of 25 short plays will contain the collections Political Suicide, The Penis Responds, Answers, and Valentines for Two, as well as The One About the Guy in the Bar, The Kindness of Strangers, and American Terrorist.
His films include On Golden Pond (Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda and Jane Fonda), Sweet Hearts Dance (Susan Sarandon and Jeff Daniels), The Lies Boys Tell (Kirk Douglas), 1969 (Robert Downey Jr. and Bruce Dern), The West Side Waltz (Shirley MacLaine and Liza Minnelli), Out of Time, and the live On Golden Pond (Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer), the last four of which Ernest also directed, as he has his latest films, Time and Charges and Heavenly Angle. Both were produced by his company, Whitebridge Farm Productions, and offered as On Location Training to anyone of any background, experience or age interested in any aspect of filmmaking.
In the theatre, Ernest has directed the world premieres of The Elixir, The Penis Responds, Ax of Love, Another Summer (the On Golden Pond musical), and, in partnership with Rock the Vote, his darkly funny collection Political Suicide, which opened on Primary Night in New Hampshire, followed by productions across the country.
From his home base, a 200-year-old farm in rural New Hampshire, Ernest has worked with hundreds of writers, hosting his internationally renowned Write On Golden Pond workshops and through Rescind Recidivism, the prison writing program he established with his writer wife Kerrin Thompson, giving inmates a chance to feel creative as well as human, capable and worthy. Ernest also has had the privilege of providing one-on-one script and manuscript analysis and private coaching to actors and public speakers.
He’ll soon direct his long-awaited film sequel, Home On Golden Pond, and his timely, provocative and hilarious indy, Parallel America, in which he’ll costar with New Hampshire’s Emmy-winning Gordon Clapp.