Book Club: Subduction by Kristen Millares Young

Madison Books hosts an in-person Book Club meeting every month at 6:30 p.m., usually but not always on the last Thursday. Drop in to chat with your neighbors about some of the best books of this or any moment. All readers are welcome--you don't need to sign up in advance, but registering here will help us plan for the right number of attendees. Meetings are held at Parlour Wines, around the corner from the bookstore and across the street from the Madison Park tennis courts.

While most book clubs focus on the hottest current releases, we're doing something a little different this year by reaching into the past. We'll be exploring narratives of the Northwest, both contemporary and historical, fictional and nonfictional, by women writers. Some you'll certainly have heard of, maybe even already read and loved, but others may be serendipitous discoveries. We have a list we're pretty excited about, and we hope you will be, too!

Our June selection is by Kristen Millares Young.

Fleeing the shattered remains of her marriage and a betrayal by her sister, in the throes of a midlife freefall, Latina anthropologist Claudia retreats from Seattle to Neah Bay, a Native American whaling village on the jagged Pacific coast. Claudia yearns to lose herself to the songs of the tribe and the secrets of her guide, a spirited hoarder named Maggie. But when, spurred by his mother's failing memory, Maggie's prodigal son Peter returns seeking answers to his father's M**der, Claudia discovers in him the abandon she craves. Through the passionate and violent collision of these two outsiders, Subduction portrays not only their strange allegiance after grievous losses but also their imperfect attempts to find community on the Makah Indian Reservation.

Young beautifully and vividly renders the Pacific Northwest, particularly the unique world of Neah Bay. Subduction is at once a thought-provoking meditation on the geography and geology of the natural world and a generous exploration of the natural shifts and movements that shape her characters.
-- Jonathan Evison, New York Times bestselling author

With dreamlike, salt-water-laced prose that feels born of the Salish Sea, Kristen Millares Young's Subduction lyrically examines relationships strained and forged by place and belonging. Intelligently addressing womanhood, community, lust, and loss, this is a novel as deep as it is intoxicating, as intricate as it is powerful. Like Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping, Subduction is a novel to be celebrated for both its poetry and wisdom.
--Sharma Shields, author of The Cassandra

Event Venue

Parlour Wines, 1803 42nd Ave E Ground, Seattle, United States