Houston, the author of Northshire staff and customer favorites including Cowboys Are My Weakness, Deep Creek and Contents May Have Shifted will join us to discuss her newest book, an unflinching call for freedom by way of abortion rights. Houston will be joined in a double feature by Karen Nelson, whose debut novel explores adoption and family secrets.

“A story told with honesty. I thank Pam Houston for this timely and timeless book.” — Camille T. Dungy, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden

Written with equal parts candor and lyricism, Pam Houston illuminates the interconnected histories of abortion in the United States and in her own life during the decades when Roe v. Wade was the law of the land. Houston guides us through the shifting landscapes of politics, the law, and self-determination in a country where access to medical care and the power to determine your own destiny are increasingly—and once again—dependent on geography and circumstance.

Pam Houston is the author of the memoir Deep Creek: Finding Hope In The High Country, as well as two novels, Contents May Have Shifted and Sight Hound, two collections of short stories, Cowboys Are My Weakness and Waltzing the Cat, and the essay collection A Little More About Me. Houston teaches in the Creative Writing MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts Creative Writing MFA program, is a Professor of English at UC Davis, and co-founder and creative director of the literary nonprofit Writing By Writers. She lives at nine thousand feet above sea level near the headwaters of the Rio Grande.

In The Sunken Town, Lindsay, a thirty-year-old California native never gave much thought to being adopted. When she unexpectedly inherits her birth mother Claire’s farmhouse in Maine, she is plunged into a journey across the country and across the years into a lake of secrets that will ultimately reveal just how far everyone was willing to go to protect her. Told from both Lindsay’s and Claire’s points of view, The Sunken Town explores adoption, identity, the nature of family dynamics, mother-daughter relationships, the impact of family secrets, the weight of motherhood and the lasting consequences of the choices people make.

“You will care about the outcomes of these intimately and complexly drawn characters in this intricately plotted, page-turner of a debut.” — Pam Houston

Karen Nelson is the author of The Sunken Town and the co-founder of the nonprofit Writing By Writers. During her long career in nonprofits she has protected open space, funded cancer research, trained people to complete endurance events, and helped writers bring their work into the world. When not organizing writing workshops, she can be found hiking with her dog, reading, traveling, experimenting in the kitchen, and hosting dinner parties. She writes for various publications and is at work on her next novel.

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