About this Event
Please join us in person on Tuesday, April 2nd at 7:00pm central to help celebrate Rowan Beaird's debut novel,The Divorcées. Rowan will be in conversation with Exile MVP Lindsay Hunter!
About The Divorcées:
A "delicious" (Rebecca Makkai) and "deeply compelling" (Lauren Groff) debut novel set at a 1950s Reno "divorce ranch," about the complex friendship between two women who dare to imagine a different future
Lois Saunders thought that marrying the right man would finally cure her loneliness. But as picture-perfect as her husband is, she is suffocating in their loveless marriage. In 1951, though, unhappiness is hardly grounds for divorce--except in Reno, Nevada.
At the Golden Yarrow, the most respectable of Reno's famous "divorce ranches," Lois finds herself living with half a dozen other would-be divorcees, all in Reno for the six weeks' residency that is the state's only divorce requirement. They spend their days riding horses and their nights flirting with cowboys, and it's as wild and fun as Lake Forest, Illinois, is prim and stifling. But it isn't until Greer Lang arrives that Lois's world truly cracks open. Gorgeous, beguiling, and completely indifferent to societal convention, Greer is unlike anyone Lois has ever met--and she sees something in Lois that no one else ever has. Under her influence, Lois begins to push against the limits that have always restrained her. How far will she go to forge her independence, on her own terms?
Set in the glamorous, dizzying world of 1950s Reno, where housewives and movie stars rubbed shoulders at gin-soaked casinos, The Divorcees is a riveting page-turner and a dazzling exploration of female friendship, desire, and freedom.
About Rowan Beaird:
Rowan Beaird is a fiction writer whose work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and The Common, among others. She is the recipient of the Ploughshares Emerging Writer Award, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart. She has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and StoryStudio, and she currently works at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The Divorcées is her debut novel.
About 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 Books Fiction 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. Rowan 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 & Nearby Stays
Exile in Bookville, 410 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, United States
USD 0.00