About this Event
Moderating this discussion is editor at Lux magazine Natalie Adler. Joining Meg and Natalie in conversation is the Voyagers audiobook narrator Michael Crouch. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.
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ACCESSIBILITY:
Strand Book Store is an ADA compliant venue. The event space is accessible via elevator.
ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our events team at [email protected] by Jun 1 to request.
Please ask a Strand employee upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.
For further information on accessibility in this space, or to make a request, please contact [email protected]
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"In the tradition of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Meg Charlton’s Voyagers is a finely written and propulsive novel about the enduring power of friendship. It takes on big issues: the reliability of memory, the price of childhood fame, the ways adults use children for their own purposes. It’s also a book about aliens, geared for terrestrials. Which is to say it’s complex and human, anchored by a beating heart.”—Joshua Henkin
When the Signal—a mysterious transmission pulsing from the edge of the solar system— arrives, the world changes overnight. Planes are grounded, satellites fail, and speculation abounds. With many believing this could be first contact with extraterrestrial life, humanity holds its breath. But for Alex, a thirtysomething lawyer who’s spent years distancing himself from the unexplainable, the Signal feels deeply personal—the opening of an old wound.
Decades ago, Alex and a girl named Ana both vanished for thirty-six hours while on vacation near Palm Springs. When they returned, dazed but unharmed, the six-year-olds’ account of their experience had all the hallmarks of an alien abduction. The media frenzy that followed made them famous, and the long months of child stardom, of talk shows and sitcom cameos, forged a seemingly unbreakable bond between them—until the mystery behind their disappearance began to tear them apart.
Now, with the world on edge and the Signal growing stronger, Alex is drawn back to the one person who might have answers. Ana—now a professional advocate for experiencers of extraterrestrial contact—is leading a retreat near Palm Springs, a stone’s throw from the site of their childhood disappearance. As the former best friends tentatively reunite, what starts as a quest to confront the reality of their original experience becomes a larger reckoning with friendship, faith, family, and truth itself—what it means to see the stories we tell ourselves for what they really are.
With the imaginative scope and propulsive storytelling of Station Eleven and The Ministry of Time, Voyagers is a thrillingly original and brilliantly ambitious literary debut about friendship at the end of the world.
Meg Charlton was born and raised in New York City. She holds an MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College and her work has appeared in Slate, Lux, Vice, and The Yale Review. Voyagers is her first novel.
Natalie Adler is an editor at Lux magazine and instructor at Sackett Street Writers. Her first novel, Waiting on a Friend, is out from Hogarth in May.
Michael Crouch has narrated over 500 audiobooks for major publishers, small presses, and independent authors. His work has earned widespread industry recognition, including Audie Awards, more than forty Earphones Awards, and a Golden Voice honor from AudioFile Magazine.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Strand Book Store, 828 Broadway, New York, United States
USD 13.61 to USD 34.51
