BookHampton welcomes Roxana Robinson

Going from peace to war can make a young man into a warrior. Going from war to peace can destroy him.

“In this nuanced novel, we watch this fine, troubled young man as he chooses his own mission for the home front.” —New York Times

“Roxana Robinson’s Sparta is a feat of the imagination. Vividly and with unflinching wisdom, Robinson has given voice, substance, and profound reality to her protagonist Conrad Farrell of the Marine Corps—and in so doing to thousands of veterans like him.” —Claire Messud, author of The Emperor’s Children and The Woman Upstairs

“Sparta gives us an unflinching portrayal of the costs of war, costs that go far beyond what the tallies of killed and wounded can tell us. There are plenty of losses that can be measured only in the language of the spirit, and it’s books such as this one, necessary books, that guide us to a fuller appreciation of war’s costs.” —Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award

“This book is not simply about war but about the horror and enforced isolation of trauma, the inevitable merging of the personal and the political, and the possibilities and trials found within the bonds of familial and romantic love.” —Phil Klay, author of Redeployment

Roxana Robinson is the author of the five novels Sparta (2013), Cost (2008), Sweetwater (2003), This Is My Daughter (1998), and Summer Light (1988); the three short-story collections A Perfect Stranger and Other Stories (2005), Asking for Love (1996), and A Glimpse of Scarlet and Other Stories (1991); and the biography Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life (1989). Four of these were named Notable Books of the Year by The New York Times. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, The MacDowell Colony, and the Guggenheim Foundation.