Award-winning author signing books at Havre Book Exchange Aug. 11

Billings-based author Craig Lancaster is coming to the Havre Book Exchange Wednesday, Aug. 11, at 5 p.m. for a reading and signing of his latest release, "And It Will Be a Beautiful Life."

"I'm hoping that my friends in Havre, I have several, will help me get out the word. ... The main thing for me is that Derek and Jessica, the owners of Havre Book Exchange, they deserve the support of the community they serve (and) writers in the state. I really feel like it's a partnership with them," Lancaster said.

"I want them to be healthy, because it's good for the community, I also want them to be healthy, because I would like to sell books there, he added." And so part of the compact is that they're up there selling books and so I should get in the car and come and help them sell some books and that's what I'd like to do."

Lancaster said he feels bookstores are very important to the communities they're in and he feels people will see that based on where he is having other readings and signings.

Following his stop in Havre, Lancaster said he will have events at Cassiopeia Books in Great Falls Aug. 12 at 6 p.m and Montana Book Company in Helena Aug. 13 at 6:15 p.m.

"I really value independent bookstores and how vibrant they make lives in the communities where they are. So that's what I'm really looking forward to," Lancaster said.

Lancaster said the new book is his ninth, his first solo effort in four years.

Lancaster said "And It Will Be a Beautiful Life" is about a traveling pipeline inspector named Max Wendt who lives in Billings, but he's almost never there. As the book opens, Max's life is falling apart.

"His wife has had enough. She's ready to bolt, his daughter has grown up. And she's off on her own thing. He's thought he's held it together all these years, and he really hasn't. So you know, just kind of family drama, human drama. You know? No superheroes or monsters or anything like that, just ordinary folks trying to get to the other side," Lancaster said.

Lancaster said he's had a hard time pinpointing his inspiration for the book but said he's done some of the work Max does, which informs the book, but Lancaster said it isn't directly based on himself.

"What Max does, who he is, who his family is, who his co-workers are, that's all more imagination than anything else. But, you know, I've always felt like good fiction, there's some combination of the direct influence of memory and then what happens to those memories when you apply imagination to them," Lancaster said.

"And I'd be willing to bet that anybody creative in the storytelling realm, whether it's a songwriter, or a filmmaker, or whatever, would suggest that combination in some form, you know, comes to bear on what they do," he added.

Lancaster said his new book comes a little more than a year after moving back to Montana after two years living in Maine and being creatively fallow.

He said he and his wife moved back right at the outset of the pandemic, early April 2020.

"It was, to say the absolute least, a bizarre experience. Soon after getting back, I found the groove with this book, joined up with a new publisher, The Story Plant, and now it's out. Montana has been good to me and for me," he said.

Some of Lancaster's other books include: "600 Hours of Edward," a 2010 High Plains Book Award winner for Best First Book and a 2009 Montana Honor Book, "The Summer Son," a 2010 Utah Book Award finalist, and "The Art of Departure," a 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards gold-medal winner and High Plains Book Award finalist.

"And It Will Be a Beautiful Life" is available now in hardcover, e-book and audiobook formats.

For more about Lancaster, "And It Will Be a Beautiful Life," his other books and where to purchase them, people can visit https://www.craig-lancaster.com .