Claire Jia presents WANTING, in conversation with Elizabeth DeMeo

Registration for this event is not required; however, in the case of a full event, your registration will reserve your seat.

Join us in Remington to celebrate Claire Jia's debut novel Wanting! Claire will be in conversation with Tin House Editor Elizaebth DeMeo.

ABOUT WANTING:

Ye Lian is thriving in Beijing. She has a well-paid job, a nice boyfriend, and plans to marry and move into a luxury high-rise apartment. She’s wanting for nothing–until her childhood best friend, Luo Wenyu, comes whirling back into her life after a decade in California with seemingly everything–a successful career as an influencer, a millionaire American fiancé, and a bespoke mansion in the Beijing suburbs–throwing Lian’s own reliable choices into high relief.

As the two women rekindle their friendship, Wenyu reveals a shocking secret about a past love that pushes Lian to question her own relationship. A few neighborhoods away, aging architect Song Chen is forced to confront his own past and the dissolution of his marriage as he’s tasked with building Wenyu’s dream home. And when the dark side of Wenyu’s enviable life emerges and threatens everything Lian and Wenyu have built for themselves, they must make a choice between the stable known and the frightening unknown that may have devastating and unexpected consequences.

In girlhood memories and karaoke afternoons in Xidan Square, in aspirational YouTube channels and billboard ads, in private hotel rendezvous and secret WeChat messages, Claire Jia’s debut novel is a love letter to friendship; a powder keg of impossible, interwoven desires; a siren song that explores why, even as it destroys us, we always want more.

Wanting releases on Tuesday, July 1 and is available for preorder at greedyreads.com!

Claire Jia is a writer from Illinois. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, The Rumpus, Reductress, and more. She writes for television and video games, including the 2024 Peabody Award-winning We Are OFK. She lives in Los Angeles with her friends.

Elizabeth DeMeo is an Editor at Tin House. Books she's edited have won the Pacific Northwest Book Award and CALIBA Golden Poppy Award; been short- or longlisted for the LA Times Book Prize, Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and the New American Voices Award, among others; been chosen as a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick of the Month and Indie Next List selection; and named best of the year by the New Yorker and NPR. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Arkansas, and was the recipient of a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Malaysia. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

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