Bottom Book Club: Forty Acres by Dwayne Alexander Smith
Sat, Aug 17
|The Bottom
Our next book club features the thriller, Forty Acres by Dwayne Alexander Smith. We'll have a special guest host for book club -- Dr. DeLisa Hawkes, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at UTK!
Time & Location
Aug 17, 2024, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
The Bottom, 2340 E Magnolia Ave, Knoxville, TN 37917, USA
About the Event
Join us for our next book club, where we'll dive into the thrilling novel, Forty Acres by Dwayne Alexander Smith. The Bottom Book Club will gather on Saturday, August 17, from 2-4 pm at The Bottom. We're excited to have a special guest host, Dr. DeLisa Hawkes, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and an affiliate faculty member of the Department of English and the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Please obtain your copy of the book from The Bottom and read it by our meeting date. We'll engage in a facilitated discussion, so come ready to chat! Snacks will be provided.
About Dr. Delisa Hawkes:
Dr. DeLisa D. Hawkes is an assistant professor of Africana Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with affiliate roles in the Department of English and the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Program. She focuses on 19th- and 20th-century African American literature, teaching courses and directing student research. Growing up in rural Virginia, she developed an interest in genealogy and local archives, exploring the intersections of racial and economic disparities. She is currently working on her first book, "Separate Yet Intertwined: Rediscovering Black Indigeneity in the New Negro Renaissance." Her research has been published in various peer-reviewed journals and edited collections. Dr. Hawkes is a 2023-2024 faculty fellow at the Denbo Center for Humanities and the Arts and a former Vice President of the Langston Hughes Society.
About Forty Acres:
Martin Grey, a talented Black lawyer from Queens, befriends a group of powerful, wealthy Black men who see potential in him. Invited for a weekend retreat with no distractions, Martin discovers a shocking secret: his new friends belong to a secret society that upholds the institution of slavery, with Black men as the "Masters." Faced with a choice between joining them for a limitless future or certain death if he refuses, Martin is trapped in a frightening world. "Forty Acres" is a thought-provoking novel of rage, compassion, good and evil, trust, and betrayal, following one man's desperate attempt to escape a terrifying new moral order.