Live Author Talk with Richard Babcock ’69

In the stark Nevada landscape of the 1950s, A Small Disturbance on the Far Horizon explores the aftermath of a murder through the intertwined lives of three individuals. 

Tom Lang, a deputy sheriff, finds solace in a secret affair with Ettie Calvert, the wife of his overbearing partner, Ronnie. Their lives unravel when Adam Ott, a troubled teenager, impulsively murders Ronnie, setting off a harrowing chain of events that culminate in a deadly pursuit through the rugged mountains. 

Against the backdrop of the country's nuclear bomb tests, which ominously shadow the narrative, Tom, Ettie, and Adam each wrestle with their choices and seek redemption from the haunting consequences that relentlessly pursue them.

Richard Babcock has spent his career as a writer and editor, straddling fiction and nonfiction. While serving as a top magazine editor in New York and Chicago, he published three novels. He has taught writing at Northwestern University, among other colleges, and he has worked as an editor and/or collaborator on many books by other writers. He lives with his wife, the novelist and biographer Gioia Diliberto, in Woodbury, Connecticut.

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