Wilder Tower: A Novel

Abstract

Wilder Tower tells the story of a young woman from the Southern aristocracy who goes to work in an all-male newsroom in 1979. Two fellow reporters strive to win her—a romantic poet born into the wrong century and a sexually voracious war veteran—both drawn to her vulnerability and latent passion. Complications ensue, violently disrupting the status quo, with tragic consequences. Two narrators present the newsroom drama: an impulsive male colleague obsessed with the Civil War, and an older woman with a lifetime of thwarted ambitions and bitter relationships. The novel’s events precisely follow the timeline of the Iran hostage crisis, 444 days that haunted the American psyche and still resonate today.