Join us on Thursday, August 3rd at 7pm PT when Lydia Kiesling celebrates the release of her novel, Mobility, with Rahawa Haile at 9th Ave!
Masks Encouraged for In-Person Attendance
Or watch online/Livestream link available soon
Praise for Mobility
"State Department brat Bunny Glenn, Mobility's hapless, sometimes feckless, protagonist, likes her lip gloss and her Louboutins, and isn't likely to let vaguely leftish views stand between her and her rise in the oil industry. But this sly bildungsroman has subterranean intent. A masterpiece of misdirection and a cautionary tale for our times." --Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse
"Mobility is a beautifully written and stunningly smart novel. It's a deeply engrossing, politically astute tale of the intricacies and intimacies of our daily complicity with late capital, with the collective bargain we've all made to count calories and coins while the world burns." --Namwali Serpell, author of The Furrows
"This is the story of a single American life, a frank (and often funny) look at one woman's becoming. But the accomplishment of Lydia Kiesling's second novel is untangling the forces--politics, sex, and corporate might--that dictate all of contemporary existence. Mobility is at once a tale of family life and an indictment of capitalism itself; a truly extraordinary book." --Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind
About Mobility
"Mobility is a truly gripping coming-of-age story about navigating a world of corporate greed that's both laugh-out-loud funny and politically incisive." --Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor
Bunny Glenn believes in climate change. But she also likes to get paid.
The year is 1998. The Soviet Union is dissolved, the Cold War is over, and Bunny Glenn is a lonely American teenager in Azerbaijan with her Foreign Service family. Through Bunny's bemused eyes, we watch global interests flock to her temporary backyard for Caspian oil and pipeline access, hearing rumbles of the expansion of the American security state and the buildup to the War on Terror. We follow Bunny from adolescence to middle age--from Baku to Athens to Houston--as her own ambition and desire for comfort lead her to a career in the oil industry, eventually returning to the scene of her youth, where slippery figures from the past reappear in an era of political and climate breakdown.
Propulsive and thought-provoking, empathetic yet pointed, Mobility is a story about class, power, politics, and desire told through the life of one woman--her social milieu, her romances, her unarticulated wants. Through Bunny's life choices, Lydia Kiesling masterfully explores American forms of complicity and inertia, moving between the local and the global, the personal and the political, and using fiction's singular power to illuminate a life shaped by its context.
About Lydia Kiesling
Lydia Kiesling is the author of The Golden State, a 2018 National Book Foundation 5 under 35 honoree, a finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker online, and The Cut, among other outlets. She lives in Portland, OR.
About Rahawa Haile
Rahawa Haile is an Eritrean American writer whose work has appeared in Pacific Standard, Brooklyn Magazine, and Buzzfeed. Her memoir about hiking the Appalachian Trail is forthcoming from Harper Books. She lives in Oakland.
show less
Masks Encouraged for In-Person Attendance
Or watch online/Livestream link available soon
Praise for Mobility
"State Department brat Bunny Glenn, Mobility's hapless, sometimes feckless, protagonist, likes her lip gloss and her Louboutins, and isn't likely to let vaguely leftish views stand between her and her rise in the oil industry. But this sly bildungsroman has subterranean intent. A masterpiece of misdirection and a cautionary tale for our times." --Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse
"Mobility is a beautifully written and stunningly smart novel. It's a deeply engrossing, politically astute tale of the intricacies and intimacies of our daily complicity with late capital, with the collective bargain we've all made to count calories and coins while the world burns." --Namwali Serpell, author of The Furrows
"This is the story of a single American life, a frank (and often funny) look at one woman's becoming. But the accomplishment of Lydia Kiesling's second novel is untangling the forces--politics, sex, and corporate might--that dictate all of contemporary existence. Mobility is at once a tale of family life and an indictment of capitalism itself; a truly extraordinary book." --Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind
About Mobility
"Mobility is a truly gripping coming-of-age story about navigating a world of corporate greed that's both laugh-out-loud funny and politically incisive." --Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor
Bunny Glenn believes in climate change. But she also likes to get paid.
The year is 1998. The Soviet Union is dissolved, the Cold War is over, and Bunny Glenn is a lonely American teenager in Azerbaijan with her Foreign Service family. Through Bunny's bemused eyes, we watch global interests flock to her temporary backyard for Caspian oil and pipeline access, hearing rumbles of the expansion of the American security state and the buildup to the War on Terror. We follow Bunny from adolescence to middle age--from Baku to Athens to Houston--as her own ambition and desire for comfort lead her to a career in the oil industry, eventually returning to the scene of her youth, where slippery figures from the past reappear in an era of political and climate breakdown.
Propulsive and thought-provoking, empathetic yet pointed, Mobility is a story about class, power, politics, and desire told through the life of one woman--her social milieu, her romances, her unarticulated wants. Through Bunny's life choices, Lydia Kiesling masterfully explores American forms of complicity and inertia, moving between the local and the global, the personal and the political, and using fiction's singular power to illuminate a life shaped by its context.
About Lydia Kiesling
Lydia Kiesling is the author of The Golden State, a 2018 National Book Foundation 5 under 35 honoree, a finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker online, and The Cut, among other outlets. She lives in Portland, OR.
About Rahawa Haile
Rahawa Haile is an Eritrean American writer whose work has appeared in Pacific Standard, Brooklyn Magazine, and Buzzfeed. Her memoir about hiking the Appalachian Trail is forthcoming from Harper Books. She lives in Oakland.
Join us on Thursday, August 3rd at 7pm PT when Lydia Kiesling celebrates the release of her novel, Mobility, with Rahawa Haile at 9th Ave!
Masks Encouraged for In-Person Attendance
Or watch online/Livestream link available soon
Praise for Mobility
"State Department brat Bunny Glenn, Mobility's hapless, sometimes feckless, protagonist, likes her lip gloss and her Louboutins, and isn't likely to let vaguely leftish views stand between her and her rise in the oil industry. But this sly bildungsroman has subterranean intent. A masterpiece of misdirection and a cautionary tale for our times." --Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse
"Mobility is a beautifully written and stunningly smart novel. It's a deeply engrossing, politically astute tale of the intricacies and intimacies of our daily complicity with late capital, with the collective bargain we've all made to count calories and coins while the world burns." --Namwali Serpell, author of The Furrows
"This is the story of a single American life, a frank (and often funny) look at one woman's becoming. But the accomplishment of Lydia Kiesling's second novel is untangling the forces--politics, sex, and corporate might--that dictate all of contemporary existence. Mobility is at once a tale of family life and an indictment of capitalism itself; a truly extraordinary book." --Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind
About Mobility
"Mobility is a truly gripping coming-of-age story about navigating a world of corporate greed that's both laugh-out-loud funny and politically incisive." --Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor
Bunny Glenn believes in climate change. But she also likes to get paid.
The year is 1998. The Soviet Union is dissolved, the Cold War is over, and Bunny Glenn is a lonely American teenager in Azerbaijan with her Foreign Service family. Through Bunny's bemused eyes, we watch global interests flock to her temporary backyard for Caspian oil and pipeline access, hearing rumbles of the expansion of the American security state and the buildup to the War on Terror. We follow Bunny from adolescence to middle age--from Baku to Athens to Houston--as her own ambition and desire for comfort lead her to a career in the oil industry, eventually returning to the scene of her youth, where slippery figures from the past reappear in an era of political and climate breakdown.
Propulsive and thought-provoking, empathetic yet pointed, Mobility is a story about class, power, politics, and desire told through the life of one woman--her social milieu, her romances, her unarticulated wants. Through Bunny's life choices, Lydia Kiesling masterfully explores American forms of complicity and inertia, moving between the local and the global, the personal and the political, and using fiction's singular power to illuminate a life shaped by its context.
About Lydia Kiesling
Lydia Kiesling is the author of The Golden State, a 2018 National Book Foundation 5 under 35 honoree, a finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker online, and The Cut, among other outlets. She lives in Portland, OR.
About Rahawa Haile
Rahawa Haile is an Eritrean American writer whose work has appeared in Pacific Standard, Brooklyn Magazine, and Buzzfeed. Her memoir about hiking the Appalachian Trail is forthcoming from Harper Books. She lives in Oakland.
read more
Masks Encouraged for In-Person Attendance
Or watch online/Livestream link available soon
Praise for Mobility
"State Department brat Bunny Glenn, Mobility's hapless, sometimes feckless, protagonist, likes her lip gloss and her Louboutins, and isn't likely to let vaguely leftish views stand between her and her rise in the oil industry. But this sly bildungsroman has subterranean intent. A masterpiece of misdirection and a cautionary tale for our times." --Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse
"Mobility is a beautifully written and stunningly smart novel. It's a deeply engrossing, politically astute tale of the intricacies and intimacies of our daily complicity with late capital, with the collective bargain we've all made to count calories and coins while the world burns." --Namwali Serpell, author of The Furrows
"This is the story of a single American life, a frank (and often funny) look at one woman's becoming. But the accomplishment of Lydia Kiesling's second novel is untangling the forces--politics, sex, and corporate might--that dictate all of contemporary existence. Mobility is at once a tale of family life and an indictment of capitalism itself; a truly extraordinary book." --Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind
About Mobility
"Mobility is a truly gripping coming-of-age story about navigating a world of corporate greed that's both laugh-out-loud funny and politically incisive." --Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor
Bunny Glenn believes in climate change. But she also likes to get paid.
The year is 1998. The Soviet Union is dissolved, the Cold War is over, and Bunny Glenn is a lonely American teenager in Azerbaijan with her Foreign Service family. Through Bunny's bemused eyes, we watch global interests flock to her temporary backyard for Caspian oil and pipeline access, hearing rumbles of the expansion of the American security state and the buildup to the War on Terror. We follow Bunny from adolescence to middle age--from Baku to Athens to Houston--as her own ambition and desire for comfort lead her to a career in the oil industry, eventually returning to the scene of her youth, where slippery figures from the past reappear in an era of political and climate breakdown.
Propulsive and thought-provoking, empathetic yet pointed, Mobility is a story about class, power, politics, and desire told through the life of one woman--her social milieu, her romances, her unarticulated wants. Through Bunny's life choices, Lydia Kiesling masterfully explores American forms of complicity and inertia, moving between the local and the global, the personal and the political, and using fiction's singular power to illuminate a life shaped by its context.
About Lydia Kiesling
Lydia Kiesling is the author of The Golden State, a 2018 National Book Foundation 5 under 35 honoree, a finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker online, and The Cut, among other outlets. She lives in Portland, OR.
About Rahawa Haile
Rahawa Haile is an Eritrean American writer whose work has appeared in Pacific Standard, Brooklyn Magazine, and Buzzfeed. Her memoir about hiking the Appalachian Trail is forthcoming from Harper Books. She lives in Oakland.
show less
Date/Times:
1231 9th Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94111
The Best Events
Every Week in Your Inbox
From Our Sponsors
UPCOMING EVENTS
Great suggestion! We'll be in touch.
Event reviewed successfully.