THE MIDNIGHT COOL - Lydia Peelle with music by Ketch Secor

Please join us for a very special evening featuring author Lydia Peelle reading from her highly anticipated debut novel - THE MIDNIGHT COOL - with live music  performed on guitjo and harmonica by husband  Ketch Secor of the two-time Grammy Award-winning Old Crow Medicine Show, along with a short slide show and music from an antique Edison cylinder machine.

Lydia Peelle’s story collection, REASONS FOR AND ADVANTAGES OF BREATHING, appeared to much acclaim in 2009. According to the New York Times Book Review, Peelle had “the makings of a writer who defies labels and creates her own categories.” That same year, Peelle was named one of the “5 Under 35” honorees by the National Book Foundation. Now, at last, Peelle’s debut novel has arrived, more than delivering on the promise she displayed in her collection. Set in Tennessee in 1916, on the cusp of U.S. involvement in World War I, THE MIDNIGHT COOL is a powerful, haunting, and richly told story of two flawed but endearing grifters who pursue women, wealth, and a surprisingly valuable commodity for the troops in Europe—mules.

Billy Monday and Charles McLaughlin are traveling horse traders who end up in Richfield, Tennessee, a small (fictional) town north of Nashville. A middle-aged Irish immigrant, Billy has a gift for illusion—making damaged objects look new. His companion, Charles, the smooth-tongued teenage son of a prostitute, is a natural salesman, just like the mythical father he’s never met. Once in Richfield, and desperate to improve their fortunes, they buy a gorgeous black mare from the town’s wealthiest resident, Leland Hatcher, for a price that seems too good to be true. Hatcher’s beautiful daughter Catherine catches Charles’s eye—and she warns him against buying the horse. But buy the horse they do, and when the sedative Hatcher gave the horse wears off, the mare is revealed to be a vicious man-killer who attacks on sight.

Charles and Billy find themselves marooned in Richfield, hoping they can miraculously retrain their recalcitrant mare so they can recoup their money. After a terrible accident with the horse, Billy’s past story begins unfolding simultaneously, and the reader starts to learn the truth about his connection to Charles. All the while, the war in Europe rages. The two men are drawn into it when they take a job buying mules for the British army. But in this shadow of the growing inevitability of American involvement in the war, the bond between Billy and Charles begins to fray. Falling in love with Catherine—and under the spell of the deceitful, wealthy Leland, the vision of himself he’d like to be—Charles pulls away from the man who has been his companion ever since he was a child. In the spring of 1917, as soon as the U.S. enters the war, the men find themselves now supplying the U.S. government with war mules as the people of Richfield—along with most of the country—are swept up in a frenzy of patriotism. And in a final crisis, Charles is forced to make a decision between his life and his country, his love and his duty, and a secret and the truth.

Populated by spirited, memorable characters, and written with the sure hand of a gifted, natural-born novelist, THE MIDNIGHT COOL is a startlingly profound tale of aspiration, loyalty, and love—and the eternal search for something lasting in a transitory world.

Lydia Peelle is the author of the short story collection Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing, which was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice book and received an honorable mention for the PEN/Hemingway Award. A recipient of a Whiting Award, a National Book Foundation '”5 under 35” honoree, and a recipient of the Anahid Literary Award for Armenian-American Writers, Peelle is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Virginia and has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Corporation of Yaddo, the Ragdale Foundation, and the Ucross Foundation. She lives in Tennessee.

Ketch Secor is a founding member of the two-time Grammy Award winning band Old Crow Medicine Show. His musical story traces back to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where he grew up exploring the region's deep heritage of southern roots music. He has penned dozens of original songs in this tradition, including the Platinum selling "Wagon Wheel.” Together with Old Crow Medicine Show he has spent the past 17 years performing on street corners and stages such as the Grand Ole Opry, Red Rocks Amphitheater and the Hollywood Bowl, across America and around the world.