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SUMMARY:Tom Lin presents ‘Babylon, South Dakota’
DESCRIPTION:A daring, luminous novel following a Chinese-American farming family and the secret that transforms them across generations.\n\n\nThird Place Books welcomes award-winning author Tom Lin to our Ravenna store to celebrate his new book, Babylon, South Dakota: the strange, brilliant story of the Hsiu family, a clan of hardscrabble Western farmers whose tangential relationship to a government nuclear project sets off a chain of unusual events that raise questions about power, empire, and the ties that bind.\n“I can’t remember the last time I felt so lit up by a novel. […] It’s wonder-full, enchanted and enchanting. I’m getting goosebumps right now as I type. This is the most excited I’ve been about a new book in ages.”—Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!\nThis event is free and open to the public. For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured books!\n\nTickets:\nThis event is free to attend. Registration is recommended in advance.\nPlease note: While RSVP helps us anticipate attendance, your RSVP may not guarantee a seat. Seating is first-come, first-served, and all events at our Ravenna neighborhood store are free and open to the public. Only standing room may be available for events with high interest.\nWe are happy to accommodate any accessibility concerns. Please contact us at events@thirdplacebooks.com or call our Ravenna store at (206) 525-2347.\n\nAbout Babylon, South Dakota. . .\nTIME Magazine’s Most Anticipated Books of the Year\nFrom the author of the Carnegie Medal in Fiction winner The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu comes a tantalizing, American West saga about a Chinese American family trying to survive on their Dakota farm as a powerful, mysterious, and morally dubious military secret shapes their lives.\nWhen Saul Keng Hsiu and his wife, Mei Lee, move from China to the United States to take possession of a 160-acre homestead bequeathed to them by a distant relative, all they have are the possessions on their back, some hidden gold, and a pocketful of chrysanthemum seeds. After a rocky start and a long, harsh winter, the couple find themselves successfully raising chrysanthemums and livestock, and soon after, a daughter, Mara.\nBut when representatives from the US Army Corps of Engineers buy an acre of the Hsiu’s farmland and begin building a missile silo, the inexplicable starts to occur: Mara can commune with the animals on the farm, Mei develops a hidden talent for augury, and the chrysanthemums become impervious to everything. When the Hsius learn that the project on their farm is an effort to make America’s nuclear deterrent invulnerable, they see firsthand the long arm of power and empire.\nIn the years and generations that follow, increasingly impacted by the silo and its residue, the Hsius experience strange, wondrous, and tragic events on their farm. An ambitious epic and an ode to the beauty and glory of our connection to the natural world, Babylon, South Dakota upends the idea of “strangers in a strange land” to become a classic American story. It is a daring novel about how choices reverberate across generations and asks us what we owe to one another.\nTom Lin was born in China and immigrated to the United States when he was four. A graduate of Pomona College, he also holds a PhD from the University of California, Davis. His first novel, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu, won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. He teaches English and creative writing at the University of Iowa.\n\nAbout Third Place Books\nFounded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle’s Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.\n\n\n	\n		\n		var orderCompleteCallback = function() {\n			console.log("Order complete!");\n		};\n		window.EBWidgets.createWidget({\n			widgetType: "checkout",\n			eventId: "1989126138827",\n			iframeContainerId: "wpea-eventbrite-checkout-widget",\n			iframeContainerHeight: 530,\n			onOrderComplete: orderCompleteCallback\n		});\n	\n	
URL:https://goingon.today/events/tom-lin-presents-babylon-south-dakota/
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LOCATION:6504 20th Avenue Northeast, Seattle, WA, 98115, US
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