Lane Von Herzen '84 returns to Dartmouth tonight for a public reading, after recently completing two extremely successful works, "Copper Crown" and "The Unfastened Heart."
After earning her bachelor's degree in English literature from the College, Von Herzen went on to the writer's workshop at the University of California, Irvine, to earn a master's degree. She also won the Los Angeles Arts Council Prize in fiction in 1990 and a fellowship in literature from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1994.
"Copper Crown," which is the focus of Von Herzen's reading tonight, has been referred to as "a haunting and visionary book" by English Professor Ivy Schweitzer. It is also one of the novels in Schweitzer's course titled "Women, Race and Writing."
The novel is set in a small Texas town before and after World War II and it addresses issues such as patriarchal racism and sexism, interracial rape, and violence against women and men of color. There is still, however, "a sense of hope, optimism and the belief in the power of love and friendship to redeem us all," Schweitzer said .
Schweitzer describes Von Herzen's style as a cross between Toni Morrison's "Beloved," Gloria Naylor's "Mama Day" and Fannie Flagg's "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe." Her writing is structured densely with several interconnected themes, but her style remains a controlled balance of her literary influences.
Von Herzen's second work, "The Unfastened Heart" (1994), tells the story of a mystic sympathetic towards the lovelorn, trying to heal their broken hearts. "Every character and every scene in this romantic, funny, creative, suspenseful, and enchanted novel is compelling, and every scene is wrought with grace, perception and lyricism," wrote Donna Seaman of "Booklist."
