James McBride, author of best-sellers "The Color of Water" and "The Good Lord Bird," will be at St. Louis' new blues museum on April 13.

His new book "Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul" will have gone on sale about a week before. McBride (himself a respected sax player) explores the history and legacy of the "Godfather of Soul," who was born in a shack in South Carolina.

McBride won the National Book Award for fiction in 2013 for his novel "The Good Lord Bird," which is about an escaped slave and abolitionist John Brown. His first book, "The Color of Water," is a memoir about his black minister father and, even more, his white mother, a Jewish immigrant from Poland.

St. Louis' National Blues Museum will open April 2 at 615 Washington Avenue. Smithsonian.com has called it one of 12 new museums to visit this year.

Left Bank Books asks for reservations for the free event with McBride. For more, click here.

Note: An earlier version of this post misidentified the book "The Color of Water."

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