Thomas Kohnstamm with Spencer Ruchti — 'Supersonic'

Third Place Books welcomes the return of local novelist Thomas Kohnstamm to our Lake Forest Park store for the launch of his new novel, , illuminating themes of identity, displacement, destruction, and reinvention that give rise to all great American cities. Kohnstamm will be joined in conversaiton our very own author events manager, Spencer Ruchti. This event is free and open to the public.

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 recommended 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.
Spencer Ruchti is the author events manager for Third Place Books and co-founder of the Cercador Prize for Literature in Translation. (Photo credit: Sofia Brekkan)

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, 17171 Bothell Way Northeast, Lake Forest Park, United States