Cover Reveal: 24 Hours in Charlottesville

Plus, how to preorder and details about what's inside!

Hi friends! I’m so excited to start off 2023 strong with a cover reveal of my next book, 24 Hours in Charlottesville: An Oral History of the Stand Against White Supremacy, which will come out on July 18, 2023!

With no further preamble… here it is!

And here’s the promotional copy from my publisher, Beacon Press:

A gripping oral history of the white supremacist riots that shook the nation and signaled the arrival of a polarizing new era, told from the perspectives of the anti-racist activists who fought back.

On August 11 and 12, 2017, armed neo-Nazi demonstrators descended on the University of Virginia campus and downtown Charlottesville. When they assaulted anti-racist counterprotesters, the police failed to intervene, and before the end of the day, a white supremacist had murdered counterprotester Heather Heyer.

This extraordinary account from Emmy-nominated CNN journalist and former Charlottesville resident Nora Neus provides:

• The drama, suspense, and pacing of a thriller

• Dozens of original interviews conducted with activists and politicians who were there

• Never-before-disclosed information, including new statements from then Charlottesville mayor Mike Signer and Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe

• 6 maps of key areas in Charlottesville illustrating the geography of the events depicted

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There’s a lot more to say about this project and how it came to be, which will come in future editions of this newsletter. But for now, I must commend and thank the incredibly brave people who agreed to relive their trauma in service of greater public understanding of what really happened in Charlottesville on August 11 and 12, 2017. These are their stories, and I’m so grateful they trust me to be a steward of them.

One more note on that: too often, projects like these rely on unpaid labor from local activists—especially Black women—for their success. For this project, every survivor and activist was offered compensation for their time; some chose to donate that money to charities. Politicians were not compensated. (I should note that while compensation is best practice in oral history interviews, it is not standard in journalism and I have never offered compensation for an interview or information in my role as a CNN producer.)

Further, the vast majority of the advance I was paid by Beacon Press is going back to the survivors of the events of that weekend, many of whom are still living with wounds, physical and mental. The remainder went toward research expenses.

Within the publishing world, pre-orders actually matter a lot. They signal to the publisher how much interest there is in the project, which can impact print run, marketing budget, and overall support for the project. If you can afford to do so, would you please consider pre-ordering 24 Hours in Charlottesville?

To support independent bookstores, you can pre-order through Bookshop.org at no additional cost to you: https://bookshop.org/a/84415/9780807011928 

Otherwise, feel free to pre-order from any retailer you'd like, including…

Indiebound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780807011928

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/24-hours-in-charlottesville-nora-neus/1142537405?ean=9780807011928

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0807011924/ *Kindle version available for preorder at substantial discount*

Finally, would you share this post or forward this email to a few friends who might like the book? Even if you can’t pre-order yourself, this is another way to support the book.

Meanwhile, if you want a taste of the book before preordering, or just can’t wait until July 18, check out this excerpt published in POLITICO Magazine this past August upon the fifth anniversary. (Content warning: the excerpt is the car crash scene and can be difficult to read.)

That’s all for now. I’ll leave you with book’s dedication, to whose memory I hope is honored on every page.