Whether it’s Jefferson, Mississippi in the novels of William Faulkner, or coastal Maine in Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, or even the Shire, the small, tight-knit community has provided fertile ground for novelists. This month, we bring you a show dedicated to small towns in literature, partly recorded in front of a live audience at the Derby Book Festival, where we interviewed acclaimed author Jon McGregor about his latest novel, Reservoir 13. It tells the story of a girl’s disappearance from a small village in the Peak District in England, and the aftershocks it leaves in the community for years to come. So listen in for our conversation with Jon, some thoughts about literary small town life, and join us in resisting the overwhelming urge to quote lyrics by Journey and John Cooger Mellancamp.
