Monday, May 5, 2025 7:00pm to 8:00pm
Main Library 2nd Floor
It’s 2003 and Romy Hall, named after a German actress, is at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility, deep in California’s Central Valley. Outside is the world from which she has been severed: her young son, Jackson, and the San Francisco of her youth. Inside is a new reality: thousands of women hustling for the bare essentials needed to survive; the bluffing and pageantry and casual acts of violence by guards and prisoners alike; and the deadpan absurdities of institutional living, portrayed with great humor and precision.
Stunning and unsentimental, The Mars Room is “wholly authentic…profound…luminous” (The Wall Street Journal), “one of those books that enrage you even as they break your heart” (The New York Times Book Review, cover review)—a spectacularly compelling, heart-stopping novel about a life gone off the rails in contemporary America. It is audacious and tragic, propulsive and yet beautifully refined and “affirms Rachel Kushner as one of our best novelists” (Entertainment Weekly).
About the author
The New York Times Book Review calls Rachel Kushner “one of the most gifted authors of her generation.” Creation Lake is Kushner’s newest novel, the story of a secret agent, a thirty-four-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics, bold opinions, and clean beauty, who is sent to do dirty work in France. Learn more about her on the Literary Sojourn website.
About the Literary Sojourn Author Study
The Literary Sojourn Author Study is a book discussion series designed to enhance the experience of reading our festival authors. Bud Werner Library provides book copies on loan for each group discussion. All of the discussion titles are also available in audio and e-book formats.
These discussions are designed for moderation and mingling with members of the Literary Sojourn organizing committee as we dive into select fiction, memoir and nonfiction titles by our featured authors. Open to anyone interested in participating, discussions are designed to be inclusive, supportive and meet the needs and interests of the group. Choose to join in for one or all the conversations as participants read and gather to talk about works from each of the featured writers.
This year's Literary Sojourn festival of authors is Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025.
