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Author David Payne Shares His Latest Novel Back to Wando Passo
On UNC-TV's North Carolina Bookwatch,
Friday, August 4, at 9:30 PM and Sunday, August 6, at 5 PM

David Payne has been hailed as "the most gifted American novelist of his generation" (Boston Globe) and has been likened to "Pat Conroy or perhaps a Southern John Irving" (Winston-Salem Journal). Now, in his new novel, Back to Wando Passo, Payne introduces us to Ransom Hill, lead singer of a legendary-but-now-defunct indie rock group who has come to South Carolina to turn over a new leaf. A bighearted artist and a bit of a wild man, Ransom knows that his wife Claire's patience with him hangs by a frayed thread. After a five-month separation, he's come south from New York City to rejoin her and their two young children at Wando Passo, Claire's inherited family estate, determined to save his marriage, his family, and himself.

In this episode of UNC-TV's local literary series North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, August 4, at 9:30 PM, Payne shares his fast-paced adventure story filled with lyrical writing, wicked humor, unforgettable characters that are at once different and the same.

"The book involves what is really two love triangles that share certain features-one set in present day and centered around the character Ransom Hill.. The second story revolves around a Charleston debutante, 150 years earlier," says Payne. "These two plots cut back and forth between each other throughout the book, and intersect at the end."

The Henderson, NC, native reveals how Back to Wando Passo propels its two southern love stories, and their interracial underpinnings, linked by place through time, to a simultaneous crescendo of betrayal, revenge, and redemption, that asks whether the present is doomed to ceaselessly repeat the past- or if it can sometimes change and redeem it.

"I guess I was trying to work my way toward a position where we've moved passed racial differences and to show at the end of the day that it is unimportant.and how insignificant it is in the final analysis," says Payne.

Don't miss D.G. Martin's all-new interview with David Payne on North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, August 4, at 9:30 PM, with an encore episode airingSunday, August 6, at 5 PM,only on UNC-TV!

During this season of North Carolina Bookwatch, guests also include: Will Blythe (To Hate Like This is to be Happy Forever, July 7), John Hart (TheKing of Lies, July 14), Sarah Dessen (Just Listen, July 21), Kristin Henderson (While They're at War), John Hope Franklin (Mirror to America, August 11), Leah Stewart (The Myth of You and Me, August 18), Andrew Britton (The American, August 25), Allan Gurganus (New Stories from the South, Sept. 1), Tom Carlson (Hatteras Blues, Sept. 8), Bill Smith (Seasoned in the South, Sept. 15), William Leuchtenburg (The White House Looks South, Sept. 22), Dot Jackson (Refuge, Sept. 29), Art Chansky (Blue Blood, Oct. 6), Mark Ethridge (Grievances, Oct. 13),  Paul Leonard (Music of a Thousand Hammers, Oct. 20), and Angela Davis-Gardner (Plum Wine, October 27).

For more information about additional series guests and airdates, plus, the all-new Bookwatch blog and online book club, please visit: www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

Funding for North Carolina Bookwatch is provided by UNC-TV members and by Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh's independent, full service bookstore, bringing readers and writers together since 1984.

North Carolina Bookwatch is part of UNC-TV's ongoing commitment to produce programs for and about North Carolina. UNC-TV is the statewide 11-station broadcast network of the University of North Carolina. For more information, please visit www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

For more information about North Carolina Bookwatch and UNC-TV's other local productions, please visit our website at www.unctv.org.

-UNC-TV-