In-Person: Lindsay Hunter + Jeremy T. Wilson

Join us for an in-person event to celebrate the release of Hot Springs Drive by Lindsay Hunter and The Quail Who Wears the Shirt by Jeremy T. Wilson.

Please note: Pre-registration for this event is required. By pre-registering, you are verifying that you are fully vaccinated and will wear a mask throughout the entirety of the event.

About Hot Springs Drive

The third title in Roxane Gay Books' inaugural list, Hot Springs Drive is an urgent, vicious blade of a novel about a shocking betrayal and its aftermath, asking just how far you'll go to have everything you want

A standout in an impressive body of work that has been called "mesmerizing . . . visceral . . . exquisite" (Chicago Tribune), Hot Springs Drive is a twisting literary page-turner that will appeal to readers of Celeste Ng and Mary Gaitskill.

Jackie Stinson's best friend is dead, and everyone knows who killed her.

Jackie wants to be many things, but a martyr has never been one of them. She is an ex-emotional eater and mother of four, who has finally lost the weight she long yearned to be free of. In her new, sharp-edged body, she goes by Jacqueline. But leaving her old self behind proves harder than she ever imagined. And while she believes she should be happier, misery still chases her, and motherhood threatens to subsume what little is left of her.

Her only salve is her best friend Theresa, whose seemingly perfect life she desperately covets. Since they met in the maternity ward 15 years earlier, the two have survived the trials of motherhood side by side - Theresa with her quiet, cherubic daughter, and Jacqueline with her rambunctious, unruly boys. Their bond is tight, but it is not enough to keep Jacqueline, finally moving through the world in the body she has always wanted, from stealing a bit of Theresa's perfect life.

Hot Springs Drive is a dark, heart-pounding exploration of one woman's deepest desires, and how the consequences of betrayal can ripple outward beyond the initial strike point. In her third and fiercest novel, acclaimed literary voice Lindsay Hunter deftly peels back the fragile veneer of two suburban families and the secrets roiling between them.

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About The Quail Who Wears the Shirt

Tuesday night is trivia night, a night for produce market owner Lee Hubbs to swing by the bar with his cop friend, a night to down a few shots and avoid all the folks who've mysteriously been turning into quails. It's a night to kick back and maybe get some action on the side from his employee/girlfriend before heading home to his wife and kids.

But this Tuesday's different. An argument with the girlfriend, a little unintentional vehicular homicide of an unsuspecting cyclist, and the next thing you know, Lee's life's upended like a bushel of rotten peaches. Well, mostly upended. Because when you're a fine upstanding citizen, and your victim is a quail-human ne'er-do-well who won't be missed by society, who's to say what's right, really?

Jeremy T. Wilson's The Quail Who Wears the Shirt is a magnificent Southern-fried meditation on guilt and karma, a fantastic and truly memorable work about the lies we tell ourselves and the truths that seep through despite our best efforts, a darkly comedic satire as strange and surreal as an onion pie.

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Lindsay Hunter received her MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the author of two story collections and three novels. Her story collection Don't Kiss Me was named one of Amazon's 10 Best Books of the Year: Short Stories. Her novel Eat Only When You're Hungry was a Book of the Month Club selection, a finalist for the Chicago Review of Books Fiction Award, and an NPR Great Read. She lives in Chicago with her family.

Jeremy T. Wilson is the author of the short story collection, Adult Teeth. He is a former winner of the Chicago Tribune's Nelson Algren Award for short fiction and has been named one of 30 Writers to Watch by the Guild Literary Complex. His work has appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, The Florida Review, Jet Fuel Review, The Masters Review, Sonora Review, Third Coast, The Best Small Fictions 2020, and other publications. He teaches creative writing at The Chicago High School for the Arts and lives in Evanston, Illinois.

Accessibility: This event will be at the bookstore, which is a wheelchair accessible space on the ground floor. We have an ADA bathroom, adjustable lighting, and reserved parking in the lot behind the store. Face masks are required. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. For ASL Interpretation, reserved seating, or other access requests, please email events@womenandchildrenfirst.com.