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Tim O'Brien at Boswell for Dad's Maybe Book, in conversation with Jim Higgins

Tim O'Brien, National Book Award-winning author of The Things They Carried, shares DAD'S MAYBE BOOK, his first in more than two decades. Dad's Maybe Book is a memoir full of wisdom from a life in letters, lessons learned in wartime, and the challenges, humor, and rewards of raising two sons. He'll chat with Liam Callanan, professor of English at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and author of Paris by the Book.

Tickets cost $29 and include admission, a signed copy of Dad's Maybe Book, and all tax and fees, available at timobrienmke.bpt.me. There's also an early bird special, where you can get the ticket for $24, still including all taxes and fees, if you purchase it by August 31. This is a rare opportunity to see a master writer.

In 2003, already an older father, O'Brien resolved to give his young sons what he wished his own father had given to him - a few scraps of paper signed "Love, Dad." Maybe a word of advice and some scattered glimpses of their rapidly aging father, a man they might never really know. For the next fifteen years, the author talked to his sons on paper, as if they were adults, imagining what they might want to hear from a father who was no longer among the living.

O'Brien traverses the great variety of human experience and emotion, moving from soccer games to warfare to risqué lullabies, from alcoholism to magic shows to history lessons to bittersweet bedtime stories, but always returning to a fathers soul-saving love for his sons. The result is Dad's Maybe Book, a funny, tender, wise, and enduring literary achievement that will squeeze the readers heart with joy and recognition.

Early bird tickets can be cancelled through September 16. Regular tickets can be cancelled through October 22. All cancellations must be done through Brown Paper Tickets. Photo credit is by Meredith O'Brien