Dani Shapiro and Kerri Arsenault recommend Beneficence

At a recent online book event for RJ Julia Booksellers, New York Times–bestselling author Dani Shapiro and book critic/debut author Kerri Arsenault (Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains) were asked to recommend the best book they’ve read recently.

Independently of each other, both authors recommended Beneficence!

Shapiro went on the give the novel, in her words, the highest praise she can give a book: she compared the writing to that of Pulitzer Prize winner Wallace Stegner:

“Right before we began tonight, Patty from RJ Julia was asking us about what we’ve been reading and if there’s anything we can recommend, and we completely—independently—wanted to say the same book.

You went up to your desk to go find it, and I was talking about it like we had planned it, but we hadn’t planned it. Bringing out books right now, in this moment that we’re in, is very hard—it’s very hard to find readers and for readers to know about books.

This is a first novel, by a writer named Meredith Hall, called Beneficence. Meredith had written a memoir published about 15–18 years ago that I taught and loved and championed, and she then closed her door again and she’s been working on this book for a really long time—and you can feel it. I’m going to actually compare it to Wallace Stegner, which is one of the biggest compliments that I could ever give a novel.

It is so deeply felt and the characters…it’s a cliché and a blurb to say that it stays with you long after you turn the last page, but it really does.”

Watch the full exchange on Youtube here.

Pre-order Beneficence here.