Forbes Library welcomes Emma Copley Eisenberg for discussion of her book Housemates as well as embodiment and fat liberation in fiction. She will be joined in conversation by Susan Stinson. 

From the publisher:

"Two young housemates embark on a road trip to discover themselves in this “exceptional, keenly observed meditation on art and love” (People) in a fractured America, by the award-winning author of The Third Rainbow Girl. 

“Tender, introspective, and at times delightfully funny, this is the perfect book to bring on a road trip.”—Time (LGBTQ+ Books to Read for Pride)

A Most Anticipated Book of 2024: Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Lit Hub, Debutiful, LGBTQ Reads, The Rumpus, Lilith, Hey Alma, Them, Kirkus Reviews

What does it feel like, standing in the moments that will mark your life? When Bernie replies to Leah’s ad for a new housemate in Philadelphia, the two begin an intense and defiantly uncategorizable friendship based on a mutual belief in their art, and one another. Both aspire to capture the world around them: Leah through her writing; Bernie through her photography. After Bernie’s former photography professor, the renowned yet tarnished Daniel Dunn, dies and leaves her a complicated inheritance, Leah volunteers to accompany Bernie to his home in rural Pennsylvania, turning the jaunt into a road trip with an ambitious mission: to document America through words and photographs.

What ensues is a journey into the heart of the nation, bringing the housemates into conversation with people from all walks of life—“the absurd dreamers and failures of this wide, wide country”—as they try to make sense of the times they are living in. Along the way, Leah and Bernie discover what it means to chase their own ideas and dreams, and to embrace what they are capable of both romantically and artistically.

Warm and insightful, Housemates is a story of youth and freedom—a glorious celebration of queer life, and how art and love might save us all."

Emma Copley (pronounced cop-ley) Eisenberg is the author of the nationally bestselling novel Housemates and the narrative nonfiction book The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia, which was named a New York Times Notable Book and was nominated for an Edgar Award, a Lambda Literary Award, and an Anthony Award, among other honors. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, McSweeney’s, VQR, American Short Fiction, and other publications. Raised in New York City, she lives in Philadelphia, where she co-founded Blue Stoop, a community hub for the literary arts.

Susan Stinson’s novels are Martha Moody, Spider in a Tree; Fat Girl Dances with Rocks, and Venus of Chalk, recently re-released as e-book from Small Beer. Belly Songs: in celebration of fat women is a chapbook of poetry and essays.  She has received the Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Award from Lambda Literary, among other honors. Her work has appeared in anthologies from Ballantine Books, Scholastic Books and is forthcoming in The Portable Feminist Reader, ed. Roxane Gay (Penguin Classics). She has taught at Smith and Amherst College and loved being Writer in Residence at Forbes Library back in the day. 

Books will be available for sale by Broadside Bookshop.

This event will be livestreamed via Forbes Library's YouTube channel. If you would like to send in a question for the Q&A, please email your question to reference@forbeslibrary.org.