Fresh Air Weekend: ‘Opal & Nev’ Author Dawnie Walton; The History Of Juneteenth

Dawnie Walton left her job as the deputy managing editor of Essence to write The Final Revival of Opal & Nev.

Rayon Richards/Simon & Schuster

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Rayon Richards/Simon & Schuster

Dawnie Walton left her job as the deputy managing editor of Essence to write The Final Revival of Opal & Nev.

Rayon Richards/Simon & Schuster

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

’70s Music Journalism Gets An Overdue Rewrite In Debut Novel ‘Opal & Nev’: Dawnie Walton’s novel is a faux oral history about an interracial rock duo. Opal is a Black proto Afro-punk singer from Detroit, and Nev is a goofy white British singer-songwriter.

Struggling Writers Steal Someone Else’s Work In 2 New Suspense Novels: Chris Power’s brooding literary novel A Lonely Man and Jen Hanff Korelitz’s nightmare of a thriller The Plot explore the dangerous consequences of sticky fingers in the literary world.

‘On Juneteenth’ Historian Examines The ‘Hope’ And ‘Hostility’ Toward Emancipation: Juneteenth celebrates the day slavery ended in Texas, June 19, 1865. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed studies the early American republic and the legacy of slavery.

You can listen to the original interviews and review here:

’70s Music Journalism Gets An Overdue Rewrite In Debut Novel ‘Opal & Nev’

Struggling Writers Steal Someone Else’s Work In 2 New Suspense Novels

‘On Juneteenth’ Historian Examines The ‘Hope’ And ‘Hostility’ Toward Emancipation