Local novelist Winnie M Li will be launching her third novel ‘What we Have Left Unsaid’ at a special event on Thursday 7th August at The Archangel Pub, in collaboration with Winstone’s Hunting Raven Books and The Write Place.
Winnie will be in conversation with bestselling author and Frome resident, Libby Page, about her new book, a road trip story about three estranged adult siblings on an unpredictable road trip down Route 66.
“I wanted to write about three siblings who have taken very different paths in their adult lives but are then forced into close quarters during a road trip through a divided America,” said Winnie. “The book has already been acclaimed by Kirkus Review, who calls it ‘a novel that embraces and questions the lure of Americana,’ while bestselling author Sarah Winman describes the book as ‘heartbreaking, beautiful and confronting.’”
To research for the novel, Winnie undertook a three-week, 3,400-mile road trip down the USA’s famous Route 66 with her partner Sam Grove and their then one-year-old, Timo. She planned the trip from their cottage in Horningsham while in midst of Covid, and they flew to Chicago, rented a car, and then drove across eight states to see her parents in California.
In the book, the same trip is undertaken by three adult Chinese American siblings, who encounter both the freedoms and dangers of travelling the open road in the Trump era, while visiting iconic sites like the St Louis Arch, the Ozarks, Cadillac Ranch and the Grand Canyon. Along the way, they address a mystery that ended a previous road trip the family took thirty years earlier.
Winnie’s previous novel ‘Complicit’ was a New York Editors’ Choice and shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award. Her debut ‘Dark Chapter’ won The Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize 2017, was translated into ten languages and has just been re-issued in a new 2025 edition.
Libby Page is the author of five novels, including bestseller The Lido and The Vintage Shop, which is set in Frome.
Both have been members of The Write Place in Frome, which is open for any writers to join.
Winnie will be leaving the Frome area to relocate to Birmingham, where she has been appointed Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham, but she welcomes all to the event, which is free and open to the public.
The launch will take place at 7pm, upstairs in The Archangel Pub on Thursday 7th August. Copies of the authors’ books will be available for signing and purchase.
