Porter Square Books: Boston Edition and GrubStreet are delighted to present the latest installment of the Grubbie Debut event series, featuring Danit Brown! Join us for a celebration of her debut novel Television for Women on Tuesday, June 24 at Porter Square Books: Boston Edition (50 Liberty Dr. Boston, Ma 02210). Andrea Meyer will join Brown in conversation, and the author talk will be followed by a signing line.

This event is co-presented by GrubStreet and Porter Square Books

For fans of Nightbitch, a darkly humorous debut novel asks what happens when motherhood isn’t all it’s cracked up to be . . .

Estie isn’t sure she likes being eight months pregnant. She isn’t even sure she likes her husband anymore, especially after he hid that he’s been fired from his job. Hello parenthood! Goodbye life as Estie imagined it! Now, she’s stranded and bloated and alone. Her cat is not a people person, and on top of it all, her best friend has been ignoring her calls ever since Estie told her about the baby. 

After Estie gives birth, she begins to suspect that all the stories she’s been told about motherhood might not be true. Having a child does not “complete” her. And that mythical connection with her baby? Well, she’s still waiting. In fact, Estie fears she is destined to end up like her own mother—divorced and crying in the bathroom while her daughter stands outside the door and wonders if she’s okay. 

Startlingly honest and unsentimental, Television for Women explores the realities of life postpartum, the demands children make on women’s identities and relationships—and the desperate lengths someone might go to in order to reclaim the person she once was.

"I can think of no other novel that depicts the first months of parenthood and its disillusionments so honestly and with so much humor and pathos and clarity. An engrossing, hilarious read." —Rebecca Makkai, author of the New York Times bestseller I Have Some Questions for You

"Danit Brown has managed to write a post-partum page-turner. Television For Women is an intimate examination of female friendship, motherhood, longing and regret, all told with wonderfully dark humor. A brutal and delightful read." —Kiley Reid, author of the New York Times bestseller Such a Fun Age

"Fans of Rachel Cusk and Rachel Yoder, watch out: This knockout of a novel will have you up all night, frantically turning pages. Rarely have I felt so seen by a depiction of early motherhood, of the maternal mental load, of the cataclysmic changes women undergo when an infant enters their lives. I loved it and can't stop thinking or talking about it." —Joanna Rakoff, author of internationally bestselling book, My Salinger Year

"If there is a canon for writing about postpartum depression, I would like to nominate Danit Brown’s Television For Women and then put it on the top of the list. I started to read this crazy thrill ride of a novel before bed and then stayed up until the middle of the night, not stopping until I was done." —Marcy Dermansky, author of Hot Air

Danit Brown is the author of the novel Television for Women, forthcoming from Melville House Publishing, and Ask for a Convertible, a linked short-story collection which was a Washington Post Best Book of 2008 and winner of a 2009 American Book Award. Her stories have appeared in numerous literary journals including Story, One Story, and Glimmer Train, and have been featured on National Public Radio. She teaches at Albion College.

Andrea Meyer's first novel, Room for Love (St. Martin's Press) is a romantic comedy based on an article she wrote for the New York Post, for which she pretended to look for a roommate as a way to meet men. The book was included in Cosmo's "Lit We Love." She completed her second novel in the Novel Incubator program at GrubStreet. A long-time film and entertainment journalist and indieWIRE editor, Andrea wrote a horror screenplay for MGM, and her articles and essays have appeared in such publications as Elle, Glamour, Time Out New York, Interview, Variety, Modern Loss, Pangyrus, and the Boston Globe. She teaches fiction and non-fiction writing at GrubStreet and recently completed a literary romp about a Cambridge manny and the women who throw his life into chaos. She is currently writing a novel about a group of reckless private school girls in LA in the 80s that focuses on issues of sexual identity and consent.

Celebrating over 25 years as the nation's leading and largest independent center for creative writing, GrubStreet is the place where writers develop their craft – and themselves – through the power of writing and sharing their work. GrubStreet offers hundreds of creative writing programs and events for writers from all backgrounds and ages at its Center for Creative Writing in the Seaport, in many Boston neighborhoods, and online. Scholarships are available for all offerings, and many programs are free. At its center, GrubStreet also hosts a community lounge, a podcast studio, Porter Square Books: Boston Edition, and a Writers’ Stage. Learn more at www.grubstreet.org.

Grubbie Debut: Danit Brown, author of Television for Women, in conversation with Andrea Meyer