MARQUETTE, Mich.—Elena Gorokhova, the author of this year’s One Book One Community selection, A Mountain of Crumbs, will give a keynote presentation at Northern Michigan University on Thursday, Oct. 25. She will speak at 7 p.m. in the Great Lakes Rooms of the University Center before participating in a question-and-answer session and book signing. The event is free and open to the public.

            Gorokhova grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia. Her girlhood in the Soviet Union during the 1960s is the focus of her memoir. At the age of 24, she married an American and came to the United States to start her new life. She earned a doctorate in language education and has taught English as a Second Language, linguistics and Russian at various New Jersey colleges and universities.

            In an overview of her book, publisher Simon and Schuster writes, “Born with a desire to explore the world beyond her borders, Elena finds her passion in the complexity of the English language—but in the Soviet Union of the 1960s such a passion verges on the subversive. Elena is controlled by the state the same way she is controlled by her mother, a mirror image of her motherland: overbearing, protective, difficult to leave. In the battle between a strong-willed daughter and her authoritarian mother, the daughter, in the end, must break free and leave in order to survive.”

            Gorokhova will speak with NMU English students at 2 p.m. Thursday in 2904 West Science. at 2 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25 in 2904 West Science. For more information, visit nmu.edu/onebook or elenagorokhova.com.