About this Event
Plain Things for Lustrous by Julia Merican
London Book Launch
We’re delighted to invite you to Reference Point for an evening celebrating the launch of Julia Merican’s debut novella, Plain Things for Lustrous.
Julia will be in conversation with Jeremy Millar, Head of Programme for Writing at the Royal College of Art, followed by a specially curated DJ set to take us through the rest of the evening.
Come along for books, music and a drink or two—drinks will be available to purchase from the Reference Point bar.
About the Book
A young woman meets her father for the first time as they set out on a road trip through her hometown. Over late-night suppers, seaside visits, tea in the highlands, and cave treks near where her mother grew up, they talk about books, belief, and lingering attachments. As the landscape shifts, so does the delicate space between them, and long-buried memories begin to surface.
Both an elegy for lost time and a cartography of reunion between strangers, Plain Things for Lustrous is a psychological portrait of love, inheritance, and the luminous power of what we reveal and conceal in the stories we tell each other.
Praise for Plain Things for Lustrous
“While reading this slender novel, I felt enveloped by it, calmed, yet glad too when bluntness came. Quiescent, verdant, and beautifully atmospheric.”
— Amina Cain, author of Indelicacy
“Silvery, sylvan, Plain Things for Lustrous evokes a perfumer’s cold enfleurage: tropical flowers, too delicate to be heated, pressed against an absorbent oil to infuse it with their scent. Like the pane of glass that holds the petals steady, Merican has captured something mysterious and essential with clarity and care.”
— Larissa Pham, author of Discipline
“Like a fairytale, Plain Things for Lustrous knows the art of withholding and unfolding secrets. The writing is delicate; the metaphors expansive. Déjà vu is a tool, with unnerving repetition harkening Marguerite Duras. In this game of hide and seek, the two voices converge in uncanny memories, beautiful and violent, as if they had not been separated. I loved this book for giving me the key to finding my own plain things.”
— Carol Mavor, author of Blue Mythologies
Event venue & nearby stays
Reference Point, 2 Arundel Street, London, United Kingdom
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