Annie Hartnett with Elisa Gabbert | An Unlikely Story
Arts
We're thrilled to welcome Annie Hartnett (
Rabbit Cake
,
Unlikely Animals
) to discuss her newest novel,
The Road to Tender Hearts
. Darkly comic and warm-hearted,
The Road to Tender Hearts
follows an old man on a cross-country mission to reunite with his high school crush—bringing together his adult daughter, two orphaned kids, and a cat who can predict death. Annie will be in conversation with poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert.
Ticket options for this event include:
General Admission + Book: This ticket option is $30.81, and includes free admission + a copy of
The Road to Tender Hearts
which Annie will sign at the event.
General Admission + Coupon: This ticket option is $5, which can be redeemed for $5 off any of Annie's books on the night of the event.
Tickets are required for this event. We hope to see you there!
ABOUT THE BOOK:
“A miraculous novel—an actual and spiritual road trip you won’t forget.”—John Irving
At sixty-three years old, million-dollar lottery winner PJ Halliday would be the luckiest man in Pondville, Massachusetts, if it weren’t for the tragedies of his life: the sudden death of his eldest daughter and the way his marriage fell apart after that. Since then, PJ spends both his money and his time at the bar, and he probably doesn’t have much time left—he’s had three heart attacks already.
But when PJ reads the obituary of his old romantic rival, he realizes his high school sweetheart, Michelle Cobb, is finally single again. Filled with a new enthusiasm for life, PJ decides he’s going to drive across the country to the Tender Hearts Retirement Community in Arizona to win Michelle back.
Before PJ can hit the road, tragedy strikes Pondville, leaving PJ the sudden guardian of his estranged brother’s grandchildren. Anyone else would be deterred from the planned trip, but PJ figures the orphaned kids might benefit from getting out of town. PJ also thinks he can ask Sophie, his adult daughter who’s adrift in her twenties, to come along to babysit. And there’s one more surprise addition to the roster: Pancakes, a former nursing home therapy cat with a knack of predicting death, who recently turned up outside PJ’s home.
This could be the second chance PJ has long hoped for—a fresh shot at love
and
parenting—but does he have the strength to do both those things again? It’s very possible his heart can’t take it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Annie Hartnett
is the author of
Unlikely Animals,
which won the Julia Ward Howe Prize for fiction and was longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize.
She is also the
author of
Rabbit Cake,
a finalist for the New England Book Award and a
Kirkus Reviews
best book of the year. Hartnett has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the MacDowell Colony, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Associates of the Boston Public Library. Along with writer Tessa Fontaine, she co-runs the Accountability Workshops for writers, helping them commit to routines and embrace the long, slow, joyful, terrible process of doing the work. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, daughter, and dog.
Elisa Gabbert
is the author of
Normal Distance
,
The Unreality of Memory
, and several other collections of poetry, essays,
and criticism. She writes the On Poetry column for
The New York Times
, and her work has appeared in
Harper’s Magazine
,
The Atlantic
,
The Believer
,
The New York Times Magazine
,
The New York Review of Books
, and other publications.
Information Source: An Unlikely Story | eventbrite