BooksIn Brief

BROWNRIGG RETURNS WITH STORIES OF CRISIS

Currently Berkeley, Calif.-based author Sylvia Brownrigg is brave in her writing.

Aside from having the courage to make a living as a writer, in her novels, Brownrigg always seems to take on some sort of crisis and ends up eloquently (seemingly effortlessly) framing it with some sort of great wisdom on the human condition.

Specializing in crises of love and relationship, one of her latest works of fiction, “Morality Tale” (2008) — which she brought to Eagle Harbor Books earlier this summer — chronicles a California woman in the throes of an unconsummated love affair of the mind.

She returns to Bainbridge Nov. 6 with an even heavier affair — that of a Serbian psychotherapist, Mira, living and working in London in the late 1990s, under the constant distant shadow of the Balkan Wars, which are ravaging her homeland.

“Watching from a distance as her former country worried itself into separate bloodied pieces, raw parts and limbs, had in turn worried Mira into a diminished rendition of herself, leeched of her ease and humour,” the story’s narrator lays the framework for the lead character’s struggle.

And yet, with a sense of inert purpose, Mira is tasked with simply listening and helping soothe her patients’ “particular pains” day in and day out.

The book’s called “The Delivery Room.” It was released in the United Kingdom in 2006 (before ‘Morality Tale’) but, strangely, not in America until this month.

SYLVIA BROWNRIGG will be reading from “The Delivery Room” with friend and local author Linda Beirds reading from her new collection of poetry “Flight” at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 6 at Eagle Harbor Books, 157 Winslow Way on Bainbridge. Info: www.sylviabrownrigg.com, www.eagleharborbooks.com or call the store at (206) 842-5332.