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This author appeared at the 2009 festival. Please view the list of authors appearing at this year's festival or see our suggestions for similar authors below.
 Dan Chaon
National Book Award finalist Dan Chaon explores the layered and often illusory nature of identity in his dark new novel, Await Your Reply. In the tradition of his previous novel, You Remind Me of Me, Await Your Reply is told from the perspectives of three different characters searching for their real identities. After spending years trying to catch up with his elusive and possibly schizophrenic twin brother, Miles Chesire finds a compelling lead and resolutely follows it north to Canada. In Michigan, college freshman Ryan Schuyler uncharacteristically becomes involved in identity theft after he learns he was adopted. When Lucy Lettimore's parents are suddenly killed, she runs away with her enigmatic high school history teacher, who promises her wealth and freedom. Loneliness, loss, and journeys of self-reinvention align the characters of Await Your Reply, even before their true connections are revealed in the novel's startling, well-earned conclusion. Peter Straub remarks that "out of pure loss, Chaon has created real magnificence." Publishers Weekly comments that Chaon's latest "bests" the "elegant prose, haunting plot and knockout literary excellence" of You Remind Me of Me. Chaon received the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2006 and is also the author of the much-lauded Among the Missing. He teaches at Oberlin College and has held two endowed chairs there since 1998.
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