Book Launch and Author Talk with OLLI Instructor Richard Matturro: Shepherd

Thursday, May 29, 2025
4:00 p.m. Eastern
In-person at BCC
Free and open to the public, reception with light refreshments to follow.

"Richard Matturro’s Shepherd is about the discovery of second love by a man and a woman who have both lost the thread of their own lives. Stuart, following the death of his wife, has taken early retirement from his classics professorship and withdrawn from the world.  Daphne, a newcomer to Stuart’s small village community, wears a more deliberate disguise, for still more bitter reasons. His searching out her secret adds an element of mystery to this subtly captivating narrative. Based (very loosely) on the myth of Daphne and Apollo from Ovid, Shepherd is a compelling story of love lost and regained — and also a healing meditation on grief and its survival, with something about what a good shepherd (in this case a dog) can do to mediate that process."

--Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls' Rising, A finalist for the 1995 National Book Award and the 1996 PEN/Faulkner Award.

Richard Matturro, a native of Rye, New York, holds a doctorate in English with a specialization in Shakespeare and Greek Mythology. After sixteen years at the Albany Times Union and fourteen years teaching literature at UAlbany, he now lives on an old farm in the foothills of the Berkshires. He is the author of numerous newspaper articles and short stories and is a frequent OLLI instructor. Shepherd is his seventh novel.

The paperback edition is out now and will be available for purchase and signing after the talk!