PEN America Author’s Evening with Elizabeth Crook

This event is sold out. Please email Maris Endres to be added to the waitlist.

Join us for an intimate dinner and conversation in Dallas, Texas with novelist Elizabeth Crook. This evening is being generously hosted by Lauren Embrey and Cris Worley.

From the author of The Which Way Tree, The Madstone opens in the Texas hill country in 1868. As nineteen-year-old Benjamin Shreve tends to business in his workshop, he witnesses a stagecoach strand a passenger. When the man, a treasure hunter, persuades Benjamin to help track down the vanished coach—and a mysterious fortune left aboard—Benjamin is drawn into a drama whose scope he could never have imagined, for they discover on reaching the coach that its passengers include Nell, a pregnant young woman, and her four-year-old son, Tot, who are fleeing Nell’s brutal husband and his murderous brothers.

Fraught with jeopardy from the outset, the trek across Texas becomes still more dangerous as buried secrets, including a cursed necklace, emerge. With its vivid characters and expansive canvas, The Madstone calls to mind Lonesome Dove, yet Elizabeth Crook’s new novel is a singular achievement. Told in Benjamin’s resolute and unforgettable voice, it is full of eccentric action, unrelenting peril, and droll humor—a thrilling and beautifully rendered story of three people sharing a hazardous and defining journey that will forever bind them together.

Donations to attend this evening are $150 per person. Following your RSVP, you will be sent the address for the dinner. The donation is considered 100% tax-deductible and supports PEN America’s mission to defend writers and free expression at a time of unprecedented need. Your generosity is deeply appreciated. 

If you have any questions, please contact Maris Endres at [email protected].

About pEN America Authors’ Evenings

The PEN America Authors’ Evenings are nights of literary dinners in private homes and intimate settings. Please visit the Authors’ Evenings webpage for our full calendar of dinners.

Proceeds from the PEN America Authors’ Evenings support PEN America’s programming to secure the liberty of persecuted and imprisoned writers around the world, to defend freedom of expression, and to promote literature and international cultural exchange.