David Ranney presents DEAR RHODA

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Join us as we welcome David Ranney in celebration of the publication of Dear Rhoda, out now from Charles H. Kerr Publishing. In chaotic bohemian Chicago of the 1920s, a powerful love affair is threatened by illness, a “red” scare and anti Semitic hatred. Confined to a TB sanitarium, Rhoda corresponds with Jerry, a left wing Jewish bookseller. Their letters reveal that the challenges and hatred they face are countered by their mutual love for each other, their love of literature, poetry and music and the left wing political causes they fight for. Their struggles come to life in the counter culture of Chicago’s Dil Pickle Club, which is frequented by Rhoda, Jerry and their friends like poet Carl Sandburg, lawyer Clarence Darrow, labor leader Jack Jones, wobblie song writer Bert Weber, hobo and left wing debater Lizzie Davis and feminist “Red” Martha Biegler. The discovery of Jerry’s letters nearly a century later in an abandoned trunk offers a message of hope by linking their past to the present.