Keenan Norris and Jane Wong present their new memoirs!

Tue Jun 27 2023 at 07:00 pm to 08:30 pm

Third Place Books | Seattle

Third Place Books Lake Forest Park
Publisher/HostThird Place Books Lake Forest Park
Keenan Norris and Jane Wong present their new memoirs! An evening of readings and discussion from novelist Keenan Norris and poet Jane Wong
About this Event

Third Place Books welcomes Keenan Norris and Jane Wong to our Ravenna store! They will be presenting their newly published memoirs, Chi Boy: Native Sons and Chicago Reckonings and Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City. This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required in advance.

This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!

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Tickets:

This event is free to attend. Registration is required in advance.


About Chi Boy: Native Sons and Chicago Reckonings. . .

Blends memoir, family history, and literary biography to portray Chicago as both a cradle of black intellect, art, and politics and a distillation of America's deepest tragedies.

In Chi Boy, Keenan Norris melds memoir, cultural criticism, and literary biography to indelibly depict Chicago—from the Great Migration to the present day—as both a cradle of black intellect, art, and politics and a distillation of America’s deepest tragedies. With the life and work of Richard Wright as his throughline, Norris braids the story of his family and particularly of his father, Butch Norris, with those of other black men—Wright, Barack Obama, Ralph Ellison, Frank Marshall Davis—who have called Chicago home. Along the way he examines the rise of black street organizations and the murders of Yummy Sandifer and Hadiya Pendleton to examine the city’s status in the cultural imaginary as “Chi-Raq,” a war zone within the nation itself. In Norris’s telling, the specter of violence over black life is inescapable: in the South that Wright and Butch Norris escaped, in the North where it finds new forms, and worldwide where American militarism abroad echoes brutalities at home. Yet, in the family story at the center of this unforgettable book, Norris also presents an enduring vision of hope and love.


About Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City. . .

An incandescent, exquisitely written memoir about family, food, girlhood, resistance, and growing up in a Chinese American restaurant on the Jersey shore.

In the late 1980s on the Jersey shore, Jane Wong watches her mother shake ants from an MSG bin behind the family’s Chinese restaurant. She is a hungry daughter frying crab rangoon for lunch, a child sneaking naps on bags of rice, a playful sister scheming to trap her brother in the freezer before he traps her first. Jane is part of a family staking their claim to the American dream, even as this dream crumbles. Beneath Atlantic City’s promise lies her father’s gambling addiction, an addiction that causes him to disappear for days and ultimately leads to the loss of the restaurant.

In her debut memoir, Jane Wong tells a new story about Atlantic City, one that resists a single identity, a single story as she writes about making do with what you have—and what you don’t. What does it mean, she asks, to be both tender and angry? What is strength without vulnerability—and humor? Filled with beauty found in unexpected places, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City is a resounding love song of the Asian American working class, a portrait of how we become who we are, and a story of lyric wisdom to hold and to share.


Keenan Norris's latest novel is The Confession of Copeland Cane, the winner of the 2022 Northern California Book Award. His essays have garnered the 2021-22 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award and 2021 Folio: Eddie Award. This year, Keenan has published the bibilio-memoir Chi Boy: Native Sons and Chicago Reckonings. He is an Associate Professor at San Jose State University.

Jane Wong is the author of the memoir Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City (Tin House, 2023). She also wrote two poetry collections: How to Not Be Afraid of Everything (Alice James, 2021) and Overpour (Action Books, 2016). She grew up on the Jersey shore in a restaurant and is an Associate Professor at Western Washington University where she teaches creative writing and Asian American literature. She really likes raccoons.


About Third Place Books

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.

Event Venue

Third Place Books, 6504 20th Ave NE, Seattle, United States

Tickets

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