About this Event
Join us for an exciting pairing, which will see Mona Awad in conversation with Naomi Alderman, discussing her darkly funny newest novel Rouge.
From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lonely dress shop clerk whose mother’s unexpected death sends her down a treacherous path in pursuit of youth and beauty. Can she escape her mother’s fate—and find a connection that is more than skin deep?
For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa her mother to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.
Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry—as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.
‘The beauty – pun intended – of Awad’s fascinating literary experiment lies in her lyrical, almost dreamlike use of language and in her employment of archetypal symbols to illustrate a very modern fairytale.’ – Guardian
Don't forget to include a copy of Rouge with your ticket. There will be a book signing following the discussion. Join us from 18:00 for a welcome drink!
Mona Awad is the author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl (2016), Bunny (2019 - currently optioned for film with Bad Robot Productions) & All’s Well (2022). She teaches fiction in the Creative Writing program at Syracuse University and is based in Boston.
Naomi Alderman is the bestselling author of The Power, which won the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and was chosen as a book of the year by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and was recommended as a book of the year by both Barack Obama and Bill Gates. As a novelist, Alderman has been mentored by Margaret Atwood via the Rolex Arts Initiative, she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and her work has been translated into more than thirty-five languages. As a video games designer, she was lead writer on the groundbreaking alternate reality game Perplex City, and is co-creator of the award-winning smartphone exercise adventure game Zombies, Run!, which has more than 10 million players. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. She lives in London. Her most recent novel is The Future.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Waterstones, 82 Gower Street, London, United Kingdom
GBP 7.00 to GBP 13.00