First Light is thrilled to welcome novelist Stefan Merrill Block to the shop to celebrate his debut memoir, HOMESCHOOLED, which has received early praise from esteemed authors such as Mary Karr and Pulitzer Prize–winner Andrew Sean Greer.

The event will begin with an author reception from 6:30–7 p.m., followed by a conversation. Tickets include a copy of the book and a reserved seat. Unreserved seats are available on a first come, first served basis. Free RSVPs are also encouraged.

About the book

A heartbreaking, empowering and often hilarious debut memoir about a mother’s all-consuming love, a son’s perilous quest to discover the world beyond the front door and the unregulated homeschool system that impacts millions like him.

Stefan Merrill Block was nine when his mother pulled him from school and began to instruct him in the family’s living room. Beyond lessons in math, however, Stefan was largely left to his own devices and his mother’s whims, such as her project to recapture her twelve-year-old son’s early years by bleaching his hair and putting him on a crawling regimen. At a time when homeschooling had just become legal in his home state of Texas, Stefan vanished into that unseen space. But when Stefan reentered the public school system in Plano as a freshman, he was in for a jarring awakening.

At once a novelistic portrait of mother and son, and an illuminating window into an overlooked corner of the American education system, HOMESCHOOLED is a moving, funny and inspiring story of a son’s battle for a life of his own choosing, and the wages of a mother’s insatiable love.

About the author

Stefan Merrill Block grew up in Plano, Texas. His first book, The Story of Forgetting, was an international bestseller and the winner of Best First Fiction at the Rome International Festival of Literature, The Ovid Prize from the Romanian Writer’s Union, the 2008 Merck Serono Literature Prize and the 2009 Fiction Award from The Writers’ League of Texas. Stefan’s novels have been translated into ten languages, and his stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, GRANTA, The Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. He lives in upstate New York.