Accidental Journey is a rich family saga, literary fiction, the story of a family’s recovery from severe traumatic brain injury. After contemplating divorce, Cate finds herself married to a disabled man she would not and cannot leave, as she balances a thriving academic career, the needs of two children, and finds a way to meet her emotional needs. Jeff lives but has lost the sparkle of his personality and can no longer function as a husband, father, or provider.

As a clinical and forensic psychiatrist at Park Nicollet Health Services and a retired Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Lentz has extensive experience with individuals and families who have coped with traumatic brain injury. He chose fiction as the best vehicle to make accessible this common, real, and poorly understood affliction—a story he is passionate to tell. He completed the Novel Writing Project at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and is a participant in the Narrative Medicine Collaborative at the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Minnesota. He lives in downtown Minneapolis with his wife, a psychoanalyst in private practice. In addition to writing and reading, he enjoys spending time with family, including his two sons who live in the Twin Cities, going for walks, exercising, and socializing with old and new friends.

Leslie Morris is Professor of German and Chair of the Department of German, Nordic, Slavic and Dutch at the University of Minnesota, where she also served for ten years as the founding Director of the Center for Jewish Studies. She is the author most recently of The Translated Jew: German Jewish Culture outside the Margins (Northwestern University Press). Earlier publications include three co-edited volumes of essays on German Jewish culture, and a monograph on Ingeborg Bachmann’s poetry. She has written widely on the poetics of post-Holocaust memory, German Jewish and experimental poetry, and translation, and was the co-convenor of the Narrative/Medicine Collaborative at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota. She is currently writing a hybrid, experimental memoir that grapples with a mysterious illness (coma) she had while starting to explore her family’s buried Holocaust history.

Brian Duren, a former French professor and university administrator, holds doctorates from the University of Paris and the University of Minnesota. He writes novels with an introspective quality about nomadic characters who travel through time and space, always returning to what haunts them. His first novel, Whiteout, praised by the St. Paul Pioneer Press as a “stunning debut novel, worthy of national recognition,” won the Independent Publisher Gold Medal for Midwestern Fiction. Peter Geye lauded Brian’s second book, Ivory Black, as “a novel of profound elegance,” while Junot Diaz described his third novel, The Gravity of Love, as “a magnificent haunting duet of grief, absence, and the unshakable bonds of family …”

About Events at M&Q:

These are guidelines only, and if you have questions about the most up to date information, you can always call us at 612-822-4611.

Q: Are masks required?

A: For this event we ask that attendees wear a mask or face covering while seated in the event area and while in the signing line.

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A: Please do if at all possible! Use the registration button above. Registering ahead of time helps us with scheduling, book ordering, and other decisions that are made several weeks prior to the event. The more info we have ahead of time, the better.

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A: Yes, Magers & Quinn events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.

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