In-Store: Hannah Pittard: If You Love It, Let It K*ll You w/ Karah Preiss

"A masterclass in autofiction: incisive, hilarious, heartbreaking, and mercilessly candid." —Maggie Smith, New York Times bestselling author

About this Event

Event guidelines:

• All attendees are strongly encouraged to wear a face mask at all times.
• Tickets are limited to restrict capacity at our store, and each ticket will include either a copy of the featured book or a $10 Books Are Magic gift card.
• Additional copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.
• A signing will follow the talk.
• Home address is collected for contact tracing purposes; it will not be used otherwise.
• The event will also be livestreamed for free here: https://youtube.com/live/0bMd6fb9Cqo
• As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event, even if you have a ticket; email us and we'll work it out.

If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request accessibility accommodations, please contact ZXZlbnRoZWxwIHwgYm9va3NhcmVtYWdpYyAhIG5ldA==.

A refreshingly irreverent novel about art, desire, domesticity, freedom, and the intricacies of the twenty-first-century female experience, by the acclaimed writer Hannah Pittard.

Divorced and childless by choice, Hana P. has built a cozy life in Lexington, Kentucky, teaching at the university, living with her boyfriend, a fellow academic, and helping raise his pre-teen daughter. Her sister’s sprawling family lives just across the street, and their long-divorced, deeply complicated parents have also recently moved to town.

One day, Hana learns that an unflattering version of herself will appear prominently—and soon—in her ex-husband’s debut novel. For a week, her life continues largely unaffected by the news—she cooks, runs, teaches, entertains—but the morning after baking mac ’n’ cheese from scratch for her nephew’s sixth birthday, she wakes up changed. The contentment she’s long enjoyed is gone. In its place: nothing. A remarkably ridiculous midlife crisis ensues, featuring a talking cat, a visit to the dean’s office, a shadowy figure from the past, a Greek chorus of indignant students whose primary complaints concern Hana’s autofictional narrative, and a game called Dead Body.

Steeped in the subtleties and strangeness of contemporary life, If You Love It, Let It K*ll You is a deeply nuanced and disturbingly funny examination of memory, ownership, and artistic expression for readers of Miranda July’s All Fours and Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend.

Hannah Pittard is the author of six books, including the novels Listen to Me, Visible Empire, The Fates Will Find Their Way, and the memoir We Are Too Many. She’s a winner of McSweeney’s Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, a Ragdale and MacDowell fellow, and the Guy M. Davenport Professor of English at the University of Kentucky. She lives in Lexington with her boyfriend and stepdaughter.

Karah Preiss is a creative producer living in New York City. She cofounded Belletrist ( https://www.belletrist.com/) book club with actress Emma Roberts, along with Belletrist Productions, a TV and film production company.

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