Timothy J Hillegonds, "And You Will Call it Fate"

Join us in-store to celebrate the release of Timothy J. Hillegonds's memoir, And You Will Call it Fate, with conversation partner, Michele Morano!

About the Book:
In And You Will Call It Fate, Tim Hillegonds explores an eight-year relationship with Sean Dempsey, a charismatic yet volatile former NFL player turned entrepreneur who profoundly reshaped the trajectory of Hillegonds’s life. Set against the backdrop of Chicago’s financial district, the memoir follows Hillegonds—a high school dropout, struggling addict, and estranged father—as he unexpectedly enters the high-stakes world of finance under Dempsey’s intense mentorship. A troubling undercurrent of manipulation and control soon belies Dempsey’s initially supportive mentorship. As he considers the devastating two-year lawsuit through which he broke free, Hillegonds thoughtfully explores the complicated bonds formed when gratitude intersects with obligation, and harm with healing. Part workplace memoir and part nuanced meditation on masculinity, power, and redemption, Hillegonds’s tightly crafted narrative asks the reader to consider a difficult question: How does one reconcile the debts owed to those who simultaneously save and harm us?

About Timothy J. Hillegonds:
Timothy J. Hillegonds is the author of The Distance Between: A Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2019), a finalist for the 2020 Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Tim’s work has appeared in The Guardian, the Chicago Tribune, Salon, The Daily Beast, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. He serves as a contributing editor for Slag Glass City, a digital journal of the urban essay arts. Hillegonds lives, works, and writes in Chicago. www.timhillegonds.com

About Michele Morano:
Michele Morano holds a PhD in English and an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa. She is the author of two books, the travel memoir Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain and the memoir-in-essays Like Love ( forthcoming in 2020). Her short work has appeared in many anthologies and journals, including Best American Essays, Fourth Genre, Brevity, Ninth Letter, and WaveForm: Twenty-First-Century Essays by Women. She has received honors and awards from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the American Association of University Women, the Illinois Arts Council, and the MacDowell Colony, among others.

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