NEWFANE — Music is a major part of “Into the Wilderness,” an award winning novel that takes place at the Marlboro Music Festival and set against the 1964 presidential election.
With her novel recently reissued by Sibylline Press, Deborah Lee Luskin of Newfane will speak about “turning music into words” at the Marlboro Community Center on Saturday, Aug. 1, at 3 pm.
“Rose Mayer, 64-year-old New Yorker has just been widowed for a second time and doesn’t know what she’s going to do with the rest of her life,” a description of the book reads. “Percy Mendell is a 64-year-old born and bred Vermonter who doesn’t know what he’s going to do when he retires at the end of the year. She’s a Democrat; he’s a Republican. They have nothing in common — except music, which becomes their common language.”
Luskin said the novel takes place “when Vermont did not elect the Republican candidate for the first time in 109 years and was facing the end of one town-one vote districting.” Capturing Vermont as it begins to shift from red to blue, the story is said to resonate especially with readers in today’s fractured political landscape.
Luskin said the novel also includes a musical moment at the Marlboro Music Festival when, on Aug. 2, 1964, the famed Guarneri Quartet made its debut. The two main characters attend.
At the Marlboro Community Center a day before the 62nd anniversary of the quartet’s debut, Luskin will speak about the music in the novel and read some passages. Live, recorded and sung music occurs throughout the novel, according to the announcement, and a playlist can be found at deborahleeluskin.com/music-in-into-the-wilderness.
At the event, books will be available for purchase and signing. The Marlboro Community Center is at 524 South Road, Marlboro.
Luskin said the novel came out in 2010 under “a one-woman publisher in the very early days of independent publishing,” when former Vermont governor Howard Dean was running for president. It won a gold medal for regional fiction and the Vermont Library Association commended it for its sense of place.
Eventually, the book went out of print. Luskin retained the electronic rights and kept e-book copies available until she found a new publisher.
Sibylline Press says it “publishes the work of brilliant women over 50, exclusively.” It also published Luskin’s book, “Reviving Artemis: The Making of a Huntress” in November 2025.
“They loved that so much,” Luskin said.
She asked if she had any others and she mentioned “Into the Wilderness.”
Luskin said the novel is “having second chances just like its characters have second chances at love.”
“I have a second chance with this book,” she said. “It’s a wonderful thing.”
Luskin said the two main characters attend a July 4 parade based on the one in Wardsboro. Also in the story, Rose learns how to can tomatoes and Percy learns to play piano.
“Music really loosens all their prejudices, all their beliefs, all their ways of thinking,” said Luskin.
Luskin described the Guarneri Quartet as “the reigning quartet during most of my adult life.” As a graduate student in New York City, she had tickets to see the group play the whole Beethoven cycle over six nights in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She called the concerts “a life changing experience for me.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.reformer.com ’
