September 16, 2021

Kat Chow

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. 

Details

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.

About Author(s)

Kat Chow is a writer and a journalist. She was a reporter at NPR, where she was a founding member of the Code Switch team. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic and on RadioLab, among others. She's one of Pop Culture Happy Hour's fourth chairs. She's received residency fellowships from the Millay Colony and the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat. She lives near Washington, D.C.

Bryan Washington is a National Book Award 5 Under 35 honoree, and winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and The New York Times Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. His first book, the story collection Lot, was a finalist for the NBCC’s John Leonard Prize, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, and the Aspen Words Literary Prize. Lot was a New York Times Notable Book and on best-of-the-year lists from TimeNPRVanity FairBuzzFeed, and many more. He has written for The New Yorker, the New York TimesThe New York Times MagazineBuzzFeedVultureThe Paris Review, and many other publications. He lives in Houston.