Wednesday, April 8, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Skylight Books, Los Angeles
 CLICK HERE TO RSVP _**RSVP is recommended but not required. Entry and seating are first-come, first-served. RSVPs do not guarantee entry to a full event.**_ **From award-winning author Nora Lange comes a ransacking of the house of motherhood and matrimony.** Nora Lange’s debut novel, _Us Fools_, was praised as the “Great American Novel” by Molly Young in _The New York Times_, and “a razor-sharp critique of American capitalism” by Michael Schaub at NPR. Now, she turns her eye toward the daily exercise of getting by. In “Heart Beats,” Carol and David arrive late to a Boston dinner party for a night of “messy socializing” with other couples, including a former cult-leader turned financial-advisor and a woman who learned of a “kinky sort of game” while riding public transit, details that she will reveal after the peach crumble. In “Island of Phaetons,” an expatriate living in Istanbul is called away from her daily life with “the husband” and “the friend who wanted more than friendship” to visit her mother, who notoriously makes bad decisions, and who has just arrived in Greece “with news” for her daughter, a tantalizing invitation that has her daughter immediately on a plane. In “Dog Star,” two figurines live out their dreams before succumbing to the truth that they have been assembled inside of a snow globe and will never go anywhere. In the title story, a new mother in Los Angeles navigates a job, a long-distance relationship with her husband, and her visiting mother, while hoping to find relief in daytime app sex. These stories of lust, estrangement, and self-preservation are at once hilarious and savage. _Day Care_ is a biting reflection on economic precarity, love, and peeing your pants. **Nora Lange**’s debut novel _Us Fools_ was awarded the The Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction, was named a best book of 2024 by _The Boston Globe_ and _NPR_, a _Los Angeles Times_ bestseller, and a _New York Times_ Editors’ Choice. An earlier iteration of it was shortlisted for The Novel Prize from New Directions Press. Nora’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Believer , BOMB, Hazlitt, Joyland, American Short Fiction, Denver Quarterly, HTMLGIANT and is forthcoming in Granta. Her project _Dailyness_ was longlisted for the 2014 Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Performance Writers. She has received fellowships from Brown University and is a fellow at USC’s Los Angeles Institute of the Humanities. She recently moved to Salt Lake City with her family. **Brian Evenson** is the author of two dozen books of fiction, most recently the story collection _Good Night, Sleep Tight_ (2024). His collection _Song for the Unraveling of the World_ (2019) won the Shirley Jackson Award and the World Fantasy Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times' Ray Bradbury Prize. His novel _Last Days_ won the ALA-RUSA award for Best Horror Novel (2009). A sequel to _Last Days_, _Phantom Limb_, will be published in October of 2026. He is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes, an NEA fellowship, and a Guggenheim Award. His work has been translated into two dozen languages. He lives in Los Angeles.