Marian McFadden Memorial Lecture

2025 McFadden Lecturer: Timothy Egan

Join us for the 46th Annual Marian McFadden Memorial Lecture featuring a special discussion with acclaimed writer and historian Timothy Egan, acclaimed writer and veteran chronicler of the American experience, and author of A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them.

• A book signing will follow Egan's presentation.

• Attendees of the McFadden lecture will receive a code for one free ticket to visit the Indiana Historical Society's "RESIST!" exhibit through April 30, 2025.

About the Author

Timothy Egan is an acclaimed writer and veteran chronicler of the American experience, whose interests range wide across history and landscape, and into the spiritual realm. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, a popular columnist, and a National Book Award-winning author of eleven books.

His most recent book, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them, tells the story of a murderous conman, the Klan’s rise to power in Indiana in the 1920s, and the woman who led to their downfall. In addition to being a New York Times bestseller, it was a Washington Post Notable Work of Nonfiction, NPR Best Book of the Year, Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year, Chicago Review of Books Best Book of the Year, New York Public Library Best Book of the Year, and Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist.

His previous book, A Pilgrimage to Eternity, goes to the core questions of humanity, as Egan follows an ancient pilgrimage route a thousand miles from Canterbury to Rome. It received rapturous reviews and was a New York Times Notable Book of 2020. “Egan is so well-informed he starts to seem like the world’s greatest tour guide,” wrote The New York Times. The book is “impossible to put down,” said The Chicago Tribune.

Made possible by Friends of the Library through gifts to The Indianapolis Public Library Foundation.