Author RVA: Virginia Pye, ‘Marriage and Other Monuments’

The ICA invites author Virginia Pye to discuss her latest novel, Marriage and Other Monuments, with ICA Director of Community Media Chioke I’Anson. Set in Richmond during the tumultuous summer of 2020, Marriage and Other Monuments tells the story of two estranged sisters whose marriages implode against the backdrop of the social justice protests and the removal of Confederate monuments. The experience brings them closer, while their husbands conspire in a racial reckoning their ancestors would never have dreamed of. The story was inspired by the actual events of that summer and by what it takes to have a successful multi-decade marriage, built on a foundation of give and take that encourages evolution, as individuals and as a couple, even in challenging times.

This conversation is a part of the ICA series Author RVA, in which Literary Hub senior editor and novelist Jessie Gaynor, author and NPR host Mary Childs, and ICA Director of Community Media Chioke I’Anson host author conversations with notable contemporary journalists, memoirists, and writers of fiction and nonfiction to hear about how they tackle their craft, find inspiration, and quiet the creative doubt.

Talk starts at 5 p.m. with a reception to follow from 6 to 6:30 p.m.

About the Author:
Virginia Pye is the author of five books of fiction: Marriage and Other Monuments, a multigenerational drama set against a tumultuous time of racial tension in the South; The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann, a love story to writers and readers set in Gilded Age Boston; two post-colonial novels, River of Dust and Dreams of the Red Phoenix; and the award-winning story collection Shelf Life of Happiness. Virginia’s essays have appeared in The New York Times, Literary Hub, Publisher’s Weekly, Writer’s Digest, and elsewhere. She is fiction editor of the literary journal Pangyrus.