We’re pleased to welcome novelist and editor Carol Edgarian to the California Book Club this Thursday evening to talk to Tobias Wolff and host John Freeman about Wolff’s memoir This Boy’s Life, the California Book Club’s October selection.
Edgarian’s books include Rise the Euphrates; The Writer’s Life: Intimate Thoughts on Work, Love, Inspiration, and Fame from the Diaries of the World’s Great Writers; Three Stages of Amazement; and Vera. She is also the cofounder and editor of Narrative Magazine, which is turning 21 this autumn. Earlier this year, Alta Journal contributor and author Bridget Quinn said of Narrative, “Narrative embodies what I admire most in what California brings to the world: refreshing innovation, impeccable quality, and abundant talent.” Edgarian was recognized with the 1994 ANC Freedom Award.
Women—perhaps particularly women who endure difficult circumstances—and matriarchal lineage play an important role in her compassionate books. Rise the Euphrates and Vera are both historical novels featuring young people’s perspectives. The former is an intergenerational saga of Armenian women. The protagonist is an Armenian American girl whose grandmother made it out of the Armenian genocide after watching her family be slaughtered by Turks. The trauma affects her relationship with her daughter, and it falls on the protagonist to make meaning from history. It is the story of a mother and daughter, as is the entertaining novel Vera, which was published during the pandemic and takes place during the time of the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. The protagonist is a young woman born to the owner of a bordello but raised by a working-class family paid by her mother. When her mother is injured in the aftermath of the earthquake, they begin to forge a new connection. The city of that time was fairly rowdy terrain to navigate—one character believes that “in San Francisco there will always be more hookers than police, ’cause that’s who started the city—miners and hookers.” As with Wolff’s memoir, it’s the story of an unconventional mother and child.
Nothing is more pleasurable than a conversation among talented authors. Join us for a smart and wise California Book Club conversation among Wolff, Edgarian, and Freeman this Thursday evening!
Join us on October 17 at 5 p.m. Pacific time, when Wolff will sit down with CBC host John Freeman and special guest Carol Edgarian to discuss This Boy’s Life. Register for the Zoom conversation here.
WHISKEY “BOOKTAIL”
For this Thursday’s event with Wolff, mix up this masculine, playful cocktail designed by Lindsay Merbaum. —Alta
REVISITING THE GIRLS
Author Emily Holleman writes about rereading This Boy’s Life as a mother. —Alta
“BOOK OF BECOMING”
Alta books editor David L. Ulin praises Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Forrest Gander’s latest, Mojave Ghost, calling it “an excavation of interior geography, of the faults and rift zones of its author’s psyche, his history and memory.” —Alta
WRITER’S ROOM
Read CBC editor Anita Felicelli’s piece on California-raised journalist Evan Rail and his process while investigating and writing The Absinthe Forger: A True Story of Deception, Betrayal, and the World’s Most Dangerous Spirit. —Alta
“COSMIC RAYS”
Read the first installment of Karen Tei Yamashita’s serialized historical essay “Trekking to Delta.” —Alta
EXCITING S.F. EVENTS
Don’t miss these events as Litquake continues: Alta’s digital editor, Beth Spotswood, on the panel “California’s Fiercely Independent Literary Culture”; CBC host John Freeman in conversation with prior CBC guest Rachel Kushner; and the California Book Club event at the Verdi Club on Friday night. —Litquake
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