Join us for a reading and celebration of Chris McNally's Fragments of an America, Volume II, a collection of poems and essays offering a fierce meditation on the American character — moving from political critique to intimate reflections on love, loss, and what remains. Titles range from "Liz Cheney's Horse" and "A Reexamination of Exodus 7:3 in the Trumpist Fever" to the tender, philosophical "Love Like This" and "Alcazar."

Following his first volume (2016), McNally presents a challenging composite of contradictory experiences, viewed through a stance of courage and erudition — a playful but serious, honest, and necessary work for our era of civil fracture.

Chris McNally was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1960. He studied history at UC Berkeley, with additional study at the Université du Benin in Togo and in Bordeaux, France, and later earned an MFA from New York University. An avid historian, in 2012 he completed the essay Principles for a Profound Leadership: The Self-Worth of a Nation, and in 2016 published Fragments of an America, Volume I, all while helping raise two sons and running a construction project management firm for fine homes. He lives outside Hudson, New York with his wife Tamara.