Jenna Bush Hager’s latest Today show book club selection is The Names by Florence Knapp.
Knapp’s debut novel, scheduled for publication next Tuesday by Pamela Dorman/Viking, follows Cora, a mother on her way to register her new son’s name. The book is divided into three sections: In one, she acquiesces to her abusive husband’s demand that the son be named after him; in the other two, the son is given different names. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus wrote of the book, “This noteworthy debut explores a sobering topic with creativity, cleverness, and care.”
Hager announced the novel’s selection on the Today show; a clip was posted to the #ReadWithJenna Instagram account.
“Savannah, what if the name you were born with had the power to change the trajectory of your entire life?” Hager asked co-host Savannah Guthrie. “That is the question at the heart of this book.…It is a beautiful story about life’s many what ifs, a story about family, resilience, and the power of choice.”
“The name we’re given, we’re given that right at the start of our lives, and we carry it through life with us,” Knapp told Today.com. "But it’s actually chosen by someone else, which feels like a really odd thing in some ways, and then it feels like it often goes out into the world ahead of us.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
