Jasper's Nightstand features Carla Damron's newest novel, The Orchid Tattoo, in an author-led discussion at Richland Library

The Jasper Project is excited to welcome Columbia-based author Carla Damron to discuss her newest novel, The Orchid Tattoo, at Richland Library on Sunday February 26th at 3 pm.

From The Southern Literary Review, September 2022 --

The pages of Carla Damron’s The Orchid Tattoo (Koehler Books, 2022) whiz by so fast, so easily, I have to say it is one of the best nail-biters I’ve read in a while. Not only that, this well-crafted thriller features a smart, likeable hospital social worker—Georgia Thayer—as protagonist. She is pitted against a human trafficking ring. In short, The Orchid Tattoo is a great read with a social message.

The opening shows Georgia, better known as George, in action interviewing a crazed patient in a Columbia, South Carolina, hospital. When the patient claims she hears the voice of a demon, George understands better than most. She, too, hears voices that years of therapy and medication have helped her to control.

If that’s not enough action and high stakes for the opening chapter, George’s brother-in-law David calls with bad news. Her sister Peyton is missing. Her absence is incomprehensible. She would not just abandon her beloved daughter Lindsay. She would not stop going to her grad school classes. And she would not leave without her cell phone. The race is on to find Peyton.

Some chapters are told from the viewpoint of a fifteen-year-old Kitten, who is trying to escape from Roman. He is a thug who runs prostitutes out of a run-down trailer. Some chapters are narrated by other women under the traffickers’ control. Damron does an excellent job of portraying those trapped by the trafficking ring without ever stooping to condescension or losing sight of their humanity. The girls and women are fragile yet strong, vulnerable yet tough, afraid yet brave. The American at the head of the operation calls himself Jefe—pronounced hef-fay. He has become extremely wealthy from human trafficking. While some of his prostitutes work in tawdry bars, others entertain an entirely different class of clients at Jefe’s exotic Orchid Estate. CEOs. Senators. Governors. But no matter where these women and young girls work, the threat of violence hangs over them constantly. Any mistake or attempt to escape leads to a vicious beating. Or death.

Since the police don’t approach Peyton’s disappearance with enough urgency and intensity to suit George, she launches her own investigation. She learns her sister had a secret project for one of her classes. Why would she keep it secret from her husband, her sister, even her classmates? What was she up to? Did her research for this project lead to her disappearance? The more George investigates, the more she feels she can’t trust anyone except Elias, a Black gay bar owner who is her closest friend. They bonded while in group therapy.

As the novel progresses, the stakes raise for all the characters, propelling us forward relentlessly. Some surprising twists add to the novel’s breathless climactic moments.

Like her protagonist Georgia, Carla Damron is a mental health professional. She holds a Masters in Social Work (USC) and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Queens University. In 2000, she was given the “Outstanding Mental Health Professional of the Year” award by the state chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. She is a South Carolina native and lives outside of Columbia. Her novels include The Stone Necklace (winner of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star Award), Death in Zooville, Keeping Silent, and Spider Blue. Her books explore social issues like addiction, homelessness, and mental illness. Her short stories have appeared in Fall Lines, Six Minute Magazine, Melusine, In Posse Review, and other journals.

Jasper's Nightstand -- Don't call it a book club, call it a book trust

By now, it should be news to no one that Columbia, SC is a readers' city. I need more fingers than the ones I have on my hands to count the number of book clubs I know about that I don't even belong to.

Some may attribute our propensity for reading to the number of institutions of higher education we have in and around town. Universities and colleges tend to attract not only students and faculty but also literate individuals who are drawn to progressive thought and intellectual engagement, whether they go to school or not. Others may posit that the lack of hard hitting cerebral stimulation from our public education system forces us, at an early age, to seek out our own intellectual adventures in books and, ultimately, establish a life-long love of losing ourselves in literature (and, for some of us clearly, loving the lilt of alliteration).

For whatever reason, last June, Columbia was named by Amazon as one of the Top 20 Most Well-Read Cities in the country.

In fact, we're #16.

You may have heard What Jasper Said yesterday about the new One Book, One Columbia selection of Ron Rash's Saints at the River as our book selection for 2012. Given that, we at Jasper are delighted to announce our new bi-monthly reading group, Jasper's Nightstand and, in keeping with our close association with the One Book, One Columbia Project (Mike and Cindi are both on the selection committee), we are even more thrilled to announce that Saints at the River will be the first book we'll be discussing.

What's on Jasper's Nightstand?

Saints at the River by Ron Rash

Thursday, February 23rd at 7 PM

Wine Down on Main at 1520 Main Street

RSVP here

Jasper's Nightstand is a book club for artists, people who love arts and artists, and people who appreciate the unique insights that artists and arts lovers bring to the complexities of life.

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