Thomas Kohnstamm with Cynthia Brothers — 'Supersonic'

Third Place Books welcomes the return of Thomas Kohnstamm to our Seward Park store for a discussion of his new novel, . He will be joined in conversation by Cynthia Brothers, author of . This event is free and open to the public.

This event is the final of three conversations we're hosting with Kohnstamm.

For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended 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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This event is free to attend. Registration is required in advance.

When PTA president Sami Hasegawa-Stalworth petitions to rename a Seattle elementary school after her late grandmother, she ignites a battle over the school’s future and the history of its surrounding neighborhood. Supersonic launches readers into a kaleidoscopic tale of the generations of interrelated families who breathed life into that small, hilltop community.

The story cuts in time from the arrival of white settlers’ ships to the last indigenous landowner fighting to hold on to scraps of his ancestral home and back to the school’s PTA auction. It interweaves an opioid-addicted nineteenth-century con man–cum–civic booster, a disgraced Navy seaman building an airplane that travels faster than sound, a stay-at-home dad hustling to open the city’s first legal W**d shop and Sami’s grandmother, a survivor of Japanese American incarceration during World War II, who founded the school’s once-celebrated music program.

The novel traces their false starts, triumphs, and heartbreaks through the booms and busts of the Yukon gold rush, the jet age, Big Tech, and beyond. By exploring the converging and often clashing personalities that make up the dynamic soul of a place, Supersonic illuminates themes of identity, displacement, destruction, and reinvention that give rise to all great American cities.

Thomas Kohnstamm was born and raised in Seattle and still lives in the same house he grew up in—now with his wife and two children. He’s been a freelance writer for more than twenty years and has run his own multimedia content studio since 2011. Supersonic is his third book.

Cynthia Brothers (she/her) is the founder of Vanishing Seattle, a multimedia movement that documents and celebrates the disappearing institutions, small businesses, and cultures of Seattle - as well as the ones that are still here. The award-winning Vanishing Seattle film series has screened at Seattle Black Film Festival, Queer Voices: NYC Film Festival, Alaska Airlines in-flight and more. Cynthia curated the Vanishing Seattle Exhibit at RailSpur (2023) and the "We Were Here" exhibit at the Here-after/Crocodile (2024– ). She has been a collaborator in numerous creative partnerships - including with Hello | Goodbye Viaduct Festival, Converge Media, and Eighth Generation; and created story-based presentations for Joketellers Union, Town Hall Seattle, MOHAI, and more. She released her first book, Signs of Vanishing Seattle in 2024, published by Tome Press.

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 & Nearby Stays

Third Place Books Seward Park, 5041 Wilson Avenue South, Seattle, United States