Aug
3
11:30pm
All This Could Be Different: Sarah Thankam Mathews in conversation with Sanjena Sathian
By Charis Books and More/Charis Circle
Charis welcomes Sarah Thankam Mathews in conversation with Sanjena Sathian for a celebration of the paperback release of, All This Could Be Different: A Novel. From a brilliant new voice comes an electrifying novel of a young immigrant building a life for herself—a warm, dazzling, and profound saga of queer love, friendship, work, and precarity in twenty-first century America.
Graduating into the long maw of an American recession, Sneha is one of the fortunate ones. She’s moved to Milwaukee for an entry-level corporate job that, grueling as it may be, is the key that unlocks every door: she can pick up the tab at dinner with her new friend Tig, get her college buddy Thom hired alongside her, and send money to her parents back in India. She begins dating women—soon developing a burning crush on Marina, a beguiling and beautiful dancer who always seems just out of reach.
But before long, trouble arrives. Painful secrets rear their heads; jobs go off the rails; evictions loom. Sneha struggles to be truly close and open with anybody, even as her friendships deepen, even as she throws herself headlong into a dizzying romance with Marina. It’s then that Tig begins to draw up a radical solution to their problems, hoping to save them all.
A beautiful and capacious novel rendered in singular, unforgettable prose, All This Could Be Different is a wise, tender, and riveting group portrait of young people forging love and community amidst struggle, and a moving story of one immigrant’s journey to make her home in the world.
Sarah Thankam Mathews grew up between Oman and India, immigrating to the United States at seventeen. Her work has been published in Best American Short Stories and she is a recipient of fellowships from the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. In 2020, she founded the mutual aid group Bed-Stuy Strong. All This Could Be Different, a 2022 finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, is her first novel.
Sanjena Sathian is the author of the critically acclaimed novel GOLD DIGGERS, which was named a Top 10 Best Book of 2021 by the Washington Post, a Best Book of 2021 by NPR, Electric Literature, and Amazon, and longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. It also won Georgia’s 2023 Townsend Prize for Fiction. She is working on the TV adaptation with Mindy Kaling’s production company, Kaling International.
Her short fiction appears in The Best American Short Stories 2022, The Atlantic, Conjunctions, Boulevard, The Southern Humanities Review, and more. She’s written nonfiction for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Drift, and Lithub, among other outlets. She’s a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and currently teaches fiction at Emory University in Atlanta.
This event is free and open to all people, especially to those who have no income or low income right now, but we encourage and appreciate a solidarity donation in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Charis Circle's mission is to foster sustainable feminist communities, work for social justice, and encourage the expression of diverse and marginalized voices. https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/CharisCircle?code=chariscirclepage
In-person event guidelines:
- All attendees must wear a face mask at all times inside the building
- We will begin seating people at 7:00 PM ET.
- This event will be live-streamed via crowdcast. Click here to register to attend virtually.
- As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event.
- If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request specific accessibility accommodations, please contact [email protected] or call the store at 404-524-0304
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Charis Books and More/Charis Circle
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