A reading, signing, and conversation with Nora Lange, moderated by Blake Butler, author of Molly.
About the book:
"This novel is tender and exceptionally moving, but also mordantly funny in parts, and it’s a razor-sharp critique of American capitalism. And it’s written so beautifully that it’s hard to believe it’s a debut novel."
—Michael Schaub, NPR: Books We Love 2024
A tragicomic, intimate American story of two precocious sisters coming of age during the Midwestern farm crisis of the 1980s.
Joanne and Bernadette Fareown are raised on their family farm in rural Illinois, keenly affected by their parents’ volatile relationship and mounting financial debt, haunted by the cursed history of the women in their family. Largely left to their own devices, the sisters educate themselves on Greek mythology, feminism, and Virginia Woolf, realizing they must find unique ways to cope in these antagonistic conditions, questioning the American Dream as the rest of the country abandons their community in crisis.
As Jo and Bernie’s imaginative solutions for escape come up short against their parents’ realities, the family leaves their farm for Chicago, where Joanne—free-spirited, reckless, and unable to tame her inner violence—rebels in increasingly desperate ways. After her worst breakdown yet, Jo goes into exile in Deadhorse, Alaska, and it is up to Bernadette to use all she’s learned from her sister to revive a sense of hope against the backdrop of a failing world.
With her debut novel, Nora Lange has crafted a rambunctious, ambitious, and heart-rending portrait of two idiosyncratic sisters, determined to persevere despite the worst that capitalism and their circumstances has to throw at them.
* National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction Finalist *
About the author:
Nora Lange's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in BOMB, Hazlitt, Joyland, American Short Fiction, Denver Quarterly, HTMLGiant, LIT, The Fairy Tale Review, and elsewhere. Her project Dailyness was longlisted for the 2014 Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Performance Writers. She received her MFA from Brown University's Literary Arts Program where she was a Kaplan Fellow. An earlier iteration of her novel Us Fools was shortlisted for The Novel Prize in 2020, a prize to recognize and publish novels that explore and expand the possibilities of the form. She comes from a long line of Midwestern farmers and lives in Los Angeles with her family.
Nora Lange will hold a conversation with Blake Butler.
Blake Butler is the author of twelve book-length works, recently including Molly, Void Corporation, and UXA.GOV. His short fiction, interviews, reviews, and essays have appeared widely, including in The New York Times, Harper’s, The Paris Review, Fence, Bomb, Bookforum, and as an ongoing column at Vice. In 2021, he was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. He is a founding editor of HTMLGIANT.
Accessibility note: This event is up two flights of stairs and Lost City Books does not have an elevator. Please contact events@lostcitybookstore.com with questions.
Dato de accesibilidad: Este evento toma lugar en el segundo piso y Lost City Books no tiene ascensor. Favor de contactar events@lostcitybookstore.com con cualquiera duda.