Tom's first guest today is Michelle Orange, an author based here in Baltimore who has contributed to the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, the New York Times and other publications. She also teaches writing at Columbia University and Goucher College. Her 2013 collection of essays, called This is Running for Your Life, was critically acclaimed. Her new book is in part a memoir, a rumination on feminism, and cultural history.

It is centered around her mother. Her mother did what most mothers did not do in the 1970s: she went to graduate school, got an MBA, and rose to the top of a company as its CEO. Her story became a case study in business schools in the mid-1980s. Her choices were the subject of great debate, and they came at a price; Michelle Orange’s book is an elegant disquisition on what that price was, and how it was paid.

It’s called Pure Flame: A Legacy. Michelle Orange joins us from Brooklyn, New York. Ms. Orange will be speaking about her book with the author Jeannie Vanasco on the back patio at the Ivy Bookshop this Friday (June 4) beginning at 6:30pm. For more information on the event, click here.