Iowa City author Joseph Dobrian will stop by Prairie Lights this Friday, Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. to read from his new novel Ambitions, a family drama set in a Midwestern college town.
Ambitions is set in the fictional college town of State City, Iowa — a town essentially based off of Iowa City with a few alternations. As Iowa City is designated as the “City of Literature,” State City takes the title of the “City of Music.”
The family drama is centered around a teenage girl named Christine Wainwright, her musical ambitions and her defective family who live in State City. Christine’s passion for music is an “inconvenience” as far as her family is concerned, while her successful older brother — a novelist — is showered in praise. But when Christine goes missing, and suspicion turns to the family’s loathsome neighbor, things take a far more sinister turn.
What unfolds is the “true story” behind the Wainwrights’ otherwise-respectable facade, Dobrian says.
“I compare the novel to modern day reality shows because from the outside they look like a normal family, but once you see their actions when they think you’re not looking, you see that they are really dysfunctional and very flawed,” Dobrian said.
Dobrian says that although the story may be modern, the structure is old-fashioned — similar in style to a turn-of-the-century novel.
Ambitions is Dobrian’s second novel. His previous works include the novel Willie Wilden as well as the best-selling collection of essays, Seldom Right But Never in Doubt. Dobrian now lives in Iowa City with his four rescue cats.
