Two local authors will read and discuss their books on Sunday, November 11 at 2 pm. Both writers have set fictionalized stories in part in Sullivan County, each with historical backdrops; and both infuse government conspiracy theories into their work.
Gray Basnight will talk about his new political thriller, set against the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival and government crimes of the J Edgar Hoover era: Flight of the Fox (July 2018).
Bill Klaber will talk about his historical novel set in part in Sullivan County in the 1880s: The Rebellion of Lucy Ann Lobdell (2015), and his recently updated historical investigation: Shadow Play: The Unsolved Murder of Robert F. Kennedy (April 2018).
More About the Authors and Their Books In Gray Basnight’s new political thriller Flight of the Fox, an innocent math professor tries to decode a mystery file while hitmen chase him from Bethel to NYC and down the East Coast. Their goal is to suppress dark government crimes from decades past. His goal is for the truth to be told. The action switches between the historical backdrop of the J. Edgar Hoover era and the forthcoming 50th Anniversary of the Woodstock Festival. The professor runs for his life, armed only with his wits and intellect, worrying whether the truth will be told, and if he’ll be seen as a hero whistle blower or a pariah. Basnight is deeply immersed in his third career — fiction writing, after almost three decades in broadcast news; preceded by a few years pursuing an acting career. His other published novels are The Cop with the Pink Pistol, a modern NYC-detective mystery with some scenes in the Catskills; and Shadows in the Fire, a Civil War historical novel about two young slaves on the edge of freedom as Richmond falls in April 1865. Basnight and his wife split their time between Sullivan County and New York City. He has lived in New York long enough to consider himself a native, though he grew up in Richmond, Virginia.
William Klaber, who lives a short way upstream from where Lucy Lobdell lived 160 years ago, originally set out to write a non-fiction account of her life after learning that the farmhouse he and his wife bought in 1980 had a history with Lucy’s legend. Klaber ultimately decided it would be better as a fictionalized account, tapping her story through echoes and dreams to create the award-winning novel The Rebellion of Lucy Ann Lobdell. Just-updated for the 50th anniversary of the murder of Robert F. Kennedy, Shadow Play explores altered evidence, ignored witnesses, and coerced testimony. It challenges the official assumptions and conclusions about this troubling, and perhaps still unsolved, political murder. It’s also the basis for a new podcast that debuted at #1 on the iTunes chart this year. Bill Klaber is a part-time journalist who has lived in an old farmhouse on a hill overlooking Basket Creek since 1980, where he and his wife raised their three children.