A reading, talk, and signing with Austyn Wohlers, author of Hothouse Bloom.
About the book:
In the vein of Rachel Cusk, Han Kang, and Clarice Lispector, Hothouse Bloom follows a young woman who renounces her painting career and all her human relationships to become one with her late grandfather’s apple orchard.
Anna arrives at the orchard with the intention to abjure social life, deverbalize her experience, and adjust her consciousness to the rhythms of the trees. She succeeds, for a time, until the arrival of her old friend Jan, nomadic and lively and at work on a book about the painter Charles Burchfield. Alarmed by her isolation and declining health, he tries to get her painting again, while Anna is determined to show him the orchard as she sees it.
As the harvest approaches, the outside world descends in the form of pickers, contractors, neighbors, and pomologists. Anna realizes that the only way back to her idyllic life is to turn a profit. It becomes an obsession, much like her former in the way it consumes her, the way an apple oxidizes, might rot.
Hothouse Bloom is a millennial pastoral, both painterly and critical in its ideas about art, permaculture, subjectivity, and the natural world.
About the author:
Austyn Wohlers was born in Atlanta in 1996. Her other writing has appeared in The Baffler, The Massachusetts Review, Guernica, and elsewhere. She is also a musician, releasing music alone and with the band Tomato Flower. Hothouse Bloom is her first book.
Paul Maliszewski will moderate a conversation with the author.
Paul Maliszewski has published essays in Harper's, Granta, and Bookforum, among other magazines. His stories have appeared in The Paris Review, One Story, and BOMB and have been awarded two Pushcart Prizes. He is the author of Fakers, a collection of essays, and Prayers and Parables: Stories. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and son.
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.