Laura Zigman at Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store welcomes LAURA ZIGMAN—author of Separation Anxiety and Animal Husbandry—for a discussion of her new book Small World. She will be joined in conversation by TOM PERROTTA—bestselling author of Tracy Flick Can’t Win.

A Return to In-Person Events

Harvard Book Store is excited to be back to in-person programming. To ensure the safety and comfort of everyone in attendance, the following Covid-19 safety protocols will be in place at all of our Harvard Book Store events until further notice:

• Face coverings are required of all staff and attendees when inside the store. Masks must snugly cover nose and mouth.

About Small World

A year after her divorce, Joyce is settling into being single again. She likes her job archiving family photos and videos, and she’s developed a secret comforting hobby: trolling the neighborhood social networking site, Small World, for posts that help solve life’s easiest problems. When her older sister, Lydia, also divorced, calls to tell her she’s moving back east from Los Angeles after almost thirty years away, Joyce invites Lydia to move into her Cambridge apartment. Temporarily. Just until she finds a place of her own.

But their unlikely cohabitation—not helped by annoying new neighbors upstairs—turns out to be the post-divorce rebound relationship Joyce hadn’t planned on. Instead of forging the bond she always dreamed of having with Lydia, their relationship frays. And they rarely discuss the loss of their sister, Eleanor, who was significantly disabled and died when she was only ten years old. When new revelations from their family’s history come to light, will those secrets further split them apart, or course correct their connection for the future?

Written with wry humor and keen sensitivity, Small World is a powerful novel of sisterhood and hope—a reminder that sometimes you have to look back in order to move ahead.

Praise for Small World

“Small World is a treasure: a family story that is wistful one moment, witty and wry the next. Few novelists write as beautifully about the damaged heart and the wounded soul as Laura Zigman, or understand the emotional bonds of siblings and sisters. I loved this novel.” —Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant and The Lioness

“I absolutely loved Small World—a wise, warm, and often hilarious exploration of sisterhood and community, set against a nuanced portrait of one family’s tragic past.” —Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures

“A profound exploration of the depths and limits of unconditional love, Small World examines what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a sister, a person in the world. By turns hilarious and haunting, this is a novel for the ages.” —Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year