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Class is Back In Session: A Conversation With Jessamine Chan and Michelle Min Sterling

Fri, Mar 24

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All She Wrote Books

In-person event celebrating the paperback release of The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan!

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Class is Back In Session: A Conversation With Jessamine Chan and Michelle Min Sterling
Class is Back In Session: A Conversation With Jessamine Chan and Michelle Min Sterling

Time & Location

Mar 24, 2023, 7:30 PM

All She Wrote Books, 451 Artisan Way, Somerville, MA 02145, USA

About the Event

Join All She Wrote Books for an in-person event celebrating the paperback release of The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. For this event, Jessamine will be joined by debut author Michelle Min Sterling

This rescheduled event (orginially scheduled for February 10th) will be hosted in-person at All She Wrote Books on Friday, March 24th at 7:30pm. If you need additional access for this event, email us at info@allshewrotebooks.com.

About the Book

Longlisted for the 2023 Carnegie Medal for Excellence

Shortlisted for The Center for Fiction 2022 First Novel Prize

Selected as One of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2022!

In this New York Times bestseller and Today show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance, in this “surreal” (People), “remarkable” (Vogue), and “infuriatingly timely” (The New York Times Book Review) debut novel.

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough.

Until Frida has a very bad day.

The state has its eye on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgement, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.

Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good.

An “intense” (Oprah Daily), “captivating” (Today) page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love, The School for Good Mothers introduces, in Frida, an everywoman for the ages. Using dark wit to explore the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us, Chan has written a modern literary classic.

BUY JESSAMINE’S BOOK

BUY MICHELLE’S BOOK

Jessamine Chan’s stories have appeared in Tin House and Epoch. A former reviews editor at Publishers Weekly, she holds an MFA from Columbia University. She lives in Chicago with her family. The School for Good Mothers is her first novel.

Michelle Min Sterling teaches literature and writing at Berklee College of Music, and has been published in Joyland and The Baffler. Her debut novel, Camp Zero, is forthcoming in April 2023. 

Image Description: Image is a light pink and red colored banner with white and gold text. The banner features two small sized cover images for THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD MOTHERS on the right side and below CAMP ZERO with two photographs of the author and their conversation partner on the right side: Jessamine Chan & Michelle Min Sterling. The text reads: “A CONVERSATION WITH JESSAMINE CHAN (IN PAPERBACK) MICHELLE MIN STERLING (PRE-ORDER NOW).”

Tickets

  • Free Ticket

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  • Ticket & Book (Store Pickup)

    *Please read: Includes general admission to the event and 1 copy of The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan, to be picked up at All She Wrote Books (451 Artisan Way in Somerville). You will receive your copy of the book at the door. If you are unable to attend, you will be notified when your book is ready for pickup AFTER the event.

    $20.00
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