Virtual Event: Kat Chow
presenting
Seeing Ghosts:
A Memoir
in conversation with BRYAN WASHINGTON
DateSep
16
Thursday
September 16, 2021 5:00 PM ET |
LocationJoin our online event (or pre-register) via the link in the event description.
|
Tickets
Free - $5 contribution suggested at registration
|
Harvard Book Store's virtual event series welcomes KAT CHOW—acclaimed journalist and founding member of NPR's Code Switch team—for a discussion of her debut memoir, Seeing Ghosts. She will be joined in conversation by BRYAN WASHINGTON, author of the award-winning story collection, Lot, and the novel, Memorial.
Contribute to Support Harvard Book Store
While payment is not required, we are suggesting a $5 contribution to support this author series, our staff, and the future of Harvard Book Store—a locally owned, independently run Cambridge institution. In addition, by purchasing a copy of Seeing Ghosts on harvard.com, you support indie bookselling and the writing community during this difficult time.
About Seeing Ghosts
Kat Chow has always been unusually fixated on death. She worried constantly about her parents dying—especially her mother. A vivacious and mischievous woman, Kat's mother made a morbid joke that would haunt her for years to come: when she died, she'd like to be stuffed and displayed in Kat's future apartment in order to always watch over her.
After her mother dies unexpectedly from cancer, Kat, her sisters, and their father are plunged into a debilitating, lonely grief. With a distinct voice that is wry and heartfelt, Kat weaves together a story of the fallout of grief that follows her extended family as they emigrate from China and Hong Kong to Cuba and America. Seeing Ghosts asks what it means to reclaim and tell your family’s story: Is writing an exorcism or is it its own form of preservation? The result is an extraordinary new contribution to the literature of the American family, and a provocative and transformative meditation on who we become facing loss.
Praise for Seeing Ghosts
"How do we know our mothers? This seemed to me to be what this powerful memoir brought into focus for me. From the narrow window we have of them from childhood, expanding outward as we grow older, and then after their death, when they cannot keep their secrets from us, including that also, the result is a prismatic vision of the mother in these pages, of Chow's mother, but all our mothers. This is a book that asks us to consider if we allow our mothers to be human—and ourselves, too. A daring, loving, searing debut." —Alexander Chee, bestselling author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
“Seeing Ghosts is truly beautiful. A balm. There is such a deep comfort in Kat Chow’s writing, in her remembrance of small things. It is a love song to loss, to family, to the power of writing things down and remembering.” —Jacqueline Woodson, award-winning author of Red at the Bone
"With love and sorrow, Kat Chow's Seeing Ghosts takes up the daunting, difficult, essential task that falls to the children of immigrants—that of making visible the family histories that recede from us like a hazy shoreline, of pulling a lifeline out of the silence that compounds with acquiescence and loss and time. Uncertainty remains central and loss ineluctable, despite the doggedness and perspicacity of Chow’s efforts to uncover and recover; this might be the most human of all the truths in this beautiful, moving memoir.” —Jia Tolentino, New York Times bestselling author of Trick Mirror
Harvard Book Store’s award-winning event series continues online! Named "Best of Boston: 2020 Best Virtual Author Series" and "2021 Best Virtual Author Series" by Boston magazine.
(617) 661-1515
info@harvard.com
Media Inquiries
mediainquiries@harvard.com
Accessibility Inquiries
access@harvard.com
Classic Totes
Tote bags and pouches
in a variety of styles,
sizes, and designs, plus mugs, bookmarks, and more!
Shipping & Pickup
We ship anywhere in the U.S. and orders of $75+ ship free via media mail!
Learn More »Noteworthy Signed Books: Join the Club!
Join our Signed First Edition Club (or give a gift subscription) for a signed book of great literary merit, delivered to you monthly.
Learn More »