Authors on Tap: Kimberly King Parsons and Lindsay Hunter

Please join us in person on Tuesday, May 21st at 7:00pm central to help celebrate Kimberly King Parsons' debut novel, We Were the Universe. Kimberly will be in conversation with Exile MVP Lindsay Hunter!
About We Were the Universe:
A young mother, in denial after the death of her sister, navigates the dizzying landscapes of desire, guilt, and grief in this darkly comic, highly anticipated debut novel from Kimberly King Parsons, author of the story collection, Black Light (long-listed for the National Book Award).

The trip was supposed to be fun. When Kit's best friend gets dumped by his boyfriend, he begs her to ditch her family responsibilities for an idyllic weekend in the Montana mountains. They'll soak in hot springs, then sneak a vape into a dive bar and drink too much, like old times. Instead, their getaway only reminds Kit of everything she's lost lately: her wildness, her independence, and--most heartbreaking of all--her sister, Julie, who died a few years ago.

When she returns home to the Dallas suburbs, Kit tries to settle in to her routine--long afternoons spent caring for her irrepressible daughter, going on therapist-advised dates with her concerned husband, and reluctantly taking her mother's phone calls. But in the secret recesses of Kit's mind, she's reminiscing about the band she used to be in--and how they'd go out to the desert after shows and drop acid. She's imagining an impossible threesome with her kid's pretty gymnastics teacher and the cool playground mom. Keyed into everything that might distract from her surfacing pain, Kit spirals. As her already thin boundaries between reality and fantasy blur, she begins to wonder: Is Julie really gone?

Neon bright in its insight, both devastating and laugh-out-loud funny, We Were the Universe is an ambitious, inventive novel from a revelatory new voice in American fiction--a fearless exploration of sisterhood, motherhood, friendship, marriage, psychedelics, and the many strange, transcendent shapes love can take.
About Kimberly King Parsons:
Kimberly King Parsons is the author of Black Light, a collection of stories that was long-listed for the National Book Award and the Story Prize. In 2020, she received the National Magazine Award for fiction. Born in Lubbock, Texas, she lives in Portland, Oregon, with her partner and children. We Were the Universe is her first novel.
About Lindsay Hunter:
Lindsay Hunter received her MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She co-founded and co-hosted the groundbreaking Quickies! reading series, an event that focused on flash fiction. Her first book, Daddy’s, a collection of flash fiction, was published in 2010 by featherproof books, a boutique press in Chicago. Her second collection, DON’T KISS ME, was published by FSG Originals in 2013 and was named one of Amazon’s 10 Best Books of the Year: Short Stories. Her first novel, Ugly Girls, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in November 2014. The Huffington Post called it “a story that hits a note that’s been missing from the chorus of existing feminist literature.” Her latest novel, Eat Only When You’re Hungry, was a Book of the Month Club selection, a finalist for the 2017 Chicago Review of BooksFiction Award, and a 2017 NPR Great Read. She produces and hosts the podcast I’m a Writer But, a series about writers with kids, jobs, and/or lives, and how they make it all work (or don’t). Lindsay’s fifth book, a novel titled Hot Springs Drive, is out now on Roxane Gay Books and was named one of the 12 Best Thrillers of the Year by the Washington Post. She lives in Chicago with her family.
About this event:
This is a free, in person event and registration is required. Please click on the link below to register for free. Kimberly and Linsday will be happy to sign/personalize copies of their books after the event! Can't make it to the event? Signed copies will be available in store and online after the event.

Event Venue

Exile in Bookville, 410 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, United States