麻豆社

Novelist Elizabeth Wetmore's debut Valentine is a hard hitting portrayal of oil town Odessa, West Texas in the 1970's, seen through the eyes of several women who live there. The book opens with a brutal attack on a young girl, and goes on to explore the impact of the violence on the town, and especially on the women who are struggling to manage in a harsh landscape, while men work long hours in dangerous conditions. The attack divides opinion, and the community, and changes lives forever.
Elizabeth Wetmore talks to Alex Clark about her own childhood in West Texas and why she has finally come to write about it.

Also on the programme, award winning writer Sebastian Barry selects the book he'd never lend and Richard Lea explores a new trend in science writing.

And writer Lara Feigel talks about her re-working of the 1960s novel The Group by Mary McCarthy. It's a book which shocked readers with its frank and intimate scenes; now Lara has transplanted it to present day London.