Northern Kentucky Native Novelist To Hold Book Signing at Hidden Chapter

By Chuck Keller, Contributor

Settle Down is a new novel written by Northern Kentucky native Ritt Deitz. It’s the journey of a young man looking for a home, a place to belong, a place to put down roots. The problem is that he thinks he belongs to many places and wonders if he can ever belong to any one place, a common problem for restless young people. Kenny McLure, the novel’s central character, is like many graduates – a bit lost, full of questions, and wondering how to create a fulfilling life.

A good story can be hypnotizing and Kenny develops the uncanny ability to hypnotize his listeners into slumber as he succumbs to an inner storytelling voice.  We all need spirit guides, and Kenny’s include his dead father and Abraham Lincoln in some wonderful exchanges.  Kenny acquires experiences that he unknowingly begins to assemble into his life’s quilt that begins to bring him meaning and focus.

Deitz said, “I have long been obsessed with what publishers long called “sense of place” and writing about that.  Wendell Berry is my favorite author.  My dad’s old legal secretary lived up the road from him, meaning that I got some signed copies but have never met him.  I am also fascinated by language and its inability to incarnate or even really accurately capture what a place, or even “home,” really means or is at all, sometimes…. I just love what a storyteller can do with his voice.”

Yet writers persist to describe and define in wonderfully creative ways that central part of being human and searching for a home. “Home is only home,” Deitz said, “as long as you are deepening the ties you have, like tending a garden or keeping your house running the way you want to.”

Deitz grew up in a family of storytellers in Boone County. But he spread his wings and followed the academic track that took him to Virginia and North Carolina. But he landed at the University of Wisconsin at Madison where he teaches French. Along the way he was commissioned a Kentucky Colonel and a knight in France’s Order of Academic Palms. Deitz has published shorter pieces, two books, and a play in French but Settled Down is his first English novel.

Deitz is also a songwriter with ten albums to his name. He began crafting tunes at age 11 and continues the folk storytelling tradition today. He currently often performs with his son in accompaniment. At his book signing, people can expect to hear some “original songs from my catalogue, which [has] themes that have a lot in common with parts of the novel.  I didn’t do that on purpose—it’s just that I’m a folk storyteller, I guess, and my novel is kind of like my latest story project.” And it is an entertaining project indeed.

Make plans to visit the Hidden Chapter on Friday, October 10 at 7:00 PM for an evening with Ritt Deitz and celebrate the release of his new novel, Settle Down.