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Uncovering the Hidden Life of Louis-Benoit Zamor

Author Patti Flinn In Conversation with Sarah-Grace Heller

Join author Patti Flinn as she discusses her new historical fiction novel, The Greatest Thing, and explores the hidden lives of 18th-century Black Europeans, like the revolutionary Louis-Benoit Zamor.

Patti Flinn, author of the new historical fiction novel, THE GREATEST THING, and Sarah-Grace Heller, Chair of French and Italian and Associate Professor of French at The Ohio State University, will discuss Patti's book and explore the hidden lives of Black Europeans in the 18th century. Flinn’s latest novel, the first in a trilogy, THE GREATEST THING, imagines the fictionalized life of the French Black Revolutionary, Louis-Benoit Zamor. Zamor is perhaps best-known now as the man whose testimony sent French King Louis XV’s favorite mistress, Madame Jeanne du Barry, to the guillotine during the French Revolution. Discover how Black people lived in Europe during this time, with a focus on the life of Louis-Benoit Zamor, why their history is important to us now, and how powerful uncovering and retelling their stories can be.

About the Author:

Patti Flinn is the author of four novels, four novellas, and one picture book. Patti won the Romance Writers Ink Award for Romantic Comedy and her work has been nominated for numerous awards, including the Phillis Wheatley Award for Fiction. Her latest series, THE LAST FAVORITE’S PAGE, is inspired by French historical figure Louis-Benoit Zamor. It explores what life might have been like for this black man who was forever known as a traitor after turning over Madame Jeanne du Barry to the French Revolutionary Tribunal. The first book in the series, THE GREATEST THING, was published in November 2023. 

Patti lives in Central Ohio and loves listening to smooth jazz, reading, and collecting and trying recipes from unique and antique cookbooks in her spare time. Flinn created the “Exploring My Happy” blog to encourage women Gen X and older to keep pursuing their dreams, no matter their age.

About the Moderator:

Sarah-Grace Heller is Chair of French and Italian and Associate Professor of French, specializing in medieval French and Occitan literature, language, and material culture. Her publications include Fashion in Medieval France (Boydell, 2007), A Cultural History of Fashion in a Medieval Age (Berg, 2016), and articles related to sumptuary law, crusade literature, the Roman de la Rose, and the semiotics of culture. Her current project is titled Fashion’s Roots across the Romance Routes of the Mediterranean, 400-1300. She is president of the Société Guilhem IX which promotes Occitan scholarship, and serves on the editorial board of the journal Medieval Clothing and Textiles. She has served as director and associate director of OSU's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

About the Book:

THE GREATEST THING - Inspired by the life of Louis-Benoit Zamor, whose testimony sent Jeanne du Barry to the guillotine. His mother told him he was God’s greatest thing. Then he was stolen, sold, shipped to France, and re-named Louis-Benoit Zamor. Stripped of his esteem as efficiently as a fox’s coat in a royal hunt, Zamor is reared by the king’s mistress, Jeanne Du Barry—with a love as false as her smile. First, Louis-Benoit must survive childhood. Then, if the world thinks the debauched, degenerate king is its greatest thing, the answer is simple: Zamor will have to change the world. The Greatest Thing is the first installment of The Last Favorite’s Page Trilogy.

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