Friday, April 4, 2025 – 5:00-6:30 PM EDT
Price: Free
Registration: Seating is limited; please call to reserve your spot: 843-379-7025.
Venue: Pat Conroy Literary Center | 601 Bladen St., Beaufort
Website: Facebook Event Page
The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will host an evening with USA Today bestselling novelist Colleen Oakley, author of Jane and Dan at the End of the World, on Friday, April 4, at 5:00 p.m., at Conroy Center (601 Bladen St., Beaufort). Oakley will be joined in conversation by Conroy Center executive director Jonathan Haupt.
Free and open to the public. Books will be available for sale and signing. Please call to reserve your seat in advance: 843-379-7025.
About Jane and Dan at the End of the World
Date night goes off the rails in this hilariously insightful take on midlife and marriage when one unhappy couple find themselves at the heart of a crime in progress, from the USA Today bestselling author of The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise.
Jane and Dan have been married for nineteen years, but Jane isn’t sure they’re going to make it to twenty. The mother of two feels unneeded by her teenagers, and her writing career has screeched to an unsuccessful halt. Her one published novel sold under five hundred copies. Worse? She’s pretty sure Dan is cheating on her. When the couple goes to the renowned upscale restaurant La Fin du Monde to celebrate their anniversary, Jane thinks it’s as good a place as any to tell Dan she wants a divorce.
But before they even get to the second course, an underground climate activist group bursts into the dining room. Jane is shocked—and not just because she’s in a hostage situation the likes of which she’s only seen in the movies. Nearly everything the disorganized and bumbling activists say and do is right out of the pages of her failed book. Even Dan (who Jane wasn’t sure even read her book) admits it’s eerily familiar.
Which means Dan and Jane are the only ones who know what’s going to happen next. And they’re the only ones who can stop it. This wasn’t what Jane was thinking of when she said “’til death do us part” all those years ago, but if they can survive this, maybe they can survive anything—even marriage.
“Jane and Dan at the End of the World is a triumph! Poignant, darkly funny, and mind-bendingly twisty at every turn. With each new chapter, I felt more invested in Jane and Dan, the fate of their marriage, and the outcome of their shocking predicament. I cheered for them all the way to the story’s satisfying end.”—Elle Cosimano, New York Times bestselling author of Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice
“Only Colleen Oakley could turn a terrorist attack on a restaurant into a charming story full of humor, surprises, and familial love. A delightful, imaginative, laugh-out-loud joy ride of a novel.”—Nina Simon, New York Times bestselling author of Mother-Daughter Murder Night
About the Author
Colleen Oakley is the USA Today bestselling author of The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise, The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, You Were There Too, Close Enough to Touch, and Before I Go. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages around the world and have won multiple awards including Georgia Author of the Year and the French Reader’s Prize.
A former magazine editor for Women’s Health & Fitness and Marie Claire, Colleen lives in Atlanta with her husband, four children, three chickens, and a mutt named Baxter.
About the Interviewer
Jonathan Haupt is the executive director of the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center, the past director of the University of South Carolina Press, and co-editor of the anthology Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, winner of 17 book awards. He is a frequent guest book reviewer for the Charleston Post and Courier and a mentor to the student leaders of DAYLO: Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization.
