The Lanier Library will host Alabama author May Lamar for the Brown Bag Lunch Aug. 20.

Lamar’s book, Brother Sid, her first published novel, explores the life of Sidney Lanier.
“I spent three years researching and writing about the life of Sidney Lanier,” Lamar said, “including a summer spent tracking his movements during the Civil War, which took me to all kinds of strange and amazing places in the South.”

Lamar began her writing career as a reporter for the Gastonia (NC) Gazette in 1980. She left newspaper work to run an advertising agency for 20 years.

Amazon, through which her book is available, describes it as “a fictional account of how the hard luck poet handles failed love, consumption, debt, regret and the Lost Cause….” Susan Reynolds, a book review blogger with Alabama Letters, wrote “the core strength of this novel is its attention to setting, description and period detail.”