Very well, it would seem. Donnelly’s mother is still her first reader, along with her husband, a financial consultant and writer. Their daughter, now seven, is an ardent reader who makes “reading nests” on the floor with her blankets and pillows and disappears inside for hours. “Wouldn’t you love to do that?” asks Donnelly wistfully.
She’s unlikely to find the time soon. Delacorte is printing 250,000 copies of Revolution and sending her on a national book tour, with an early stop at her beloved Oblong Books & Music. Donnelly fell in love with the region while visiting Rhinebeck; she and her husband had weekend homes in Callicoon and Tivoli before relocating full-time last spring. “It’s as if we’ve moved into a Hudson River School landscape,” marvels Donnelly. “I pinch myself every day that I get to live in the Hudson Valley. Where else can you get tomatoes, cows, chickens, and Alban Berg?”
Jennifer Donnelly will appear 10/16 at 7:30pm at Oblong Books & Music in Rhinebeck, and 11/6 at 5pm, Merritt Books in Millbrook.
