Rowan Beaird, author of The Divorcées, in conversation with Christopher Castellani

When:
Tuesday, Mar 26, 2024 7:00p -
8:00p

Where:
Porter Square Books
25 White St.
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140

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Admission:
FREE

Hosted by:
...
psb_events Porter Square Books

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Event website:
https://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/rowan-beaird-author-divorc%C3%A9es-conversation-christopher-castellani

Porter Square Books and Grub Street are delighted to co-present the debut event for Rowan Beaird's novel The Divorcées! Author Christopher Castellani will join Beaird in conversation. This event will take place on Tuesday, March 26 at 7pm at Porter Square Books (25 White St. Cambridge, MA 02140).


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A "delicious" (Rebecca Makkai) and "deeply compelling" (Lauren Groff) debut novel set at a 1950s Reno "divorce ranch," about the complex friendship between two women who dare to imagine a different future


Lois Saunders thought that marrying the right man would finally cure her loneliness. But as picture-perfect as her husband is, she is suffocating in their loveless marriage. In 1951, though, unhappiness is hardly grounds for divorce—except in Reno, Nevada.


At the Golden Yarrow, the most respectable of Reno’s famous “divorce ranches,” Lois finds herself living with half a dozen other would-be divorcees, all in Reno for the six weeks’ residency that is the state’s only divorce requirement. They spend their days riding horses and their nights flirting with cowboys, and it’s as wild and fun as Lake Forest, Illinois, is prim and stifling. But it isn’t until Greer Lang arrives that Lois’s world truly cracks open. Gorgeous, beguiling, and completely indifferent to societal convention, Greer is unlike anyone Lois has ever met—and she sees something in Lois that no one else ever has. Under her influence, Lois begins to push against the limits that have always restrained her. How far will she go to forge her independence, on her own terms?


Set in the glamorous, dizzying world of 1950s Reno, where housewives and movie stars rubbed shoulders at gin-soaked casinos, The Divorcees is a riveting page-turner and a dazzling exploration of female friendship, desire, and freedom.


Rowan Beaird is a fiction writer whose work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and The Common, among others. She is the recipient of the Ploughshares Emerging Writer Award, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart. She has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and StoryStudio, and she currently works at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The Divorcées is her debut novel.


Christopher Castellani is the author of five books, most recently the novel Leading Men, for which he received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and The Art of Perspective (Graywolf, 2016), a collection of essays on narration in fiction. He is currently the writer-in-residence at Brandeis University, on the faculty and academic board of the Warren Wilson MFA Program, and a 2024 NEA Fellow in fiction. He lives in Boston and Provincetown. 

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03/26/2024 19:00:00 03/26/2024 20:00:00 America/New_York Rowan Beaird, author of The Divorcées, in conversation with Christopher Castellani <p><strong>Porter Square Books&nbsp;</strong>and&nbsp;<strong>Grub Street</strong>&nbsp;are delighted to co-present the debut event for&nbsp;<strong>Rowan Beaird's&nbsp;</strong>novel&nbsp;<a href=... Porter Square Books, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140 false MM/DD/YYYY

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