Join us on Crowdcast as we virtually welcome Fariha Róisín (LIKE A BIRD) and Jessica Gross (HYSTERIA)! They'll read from and discuss their new novels with Unnamed Press Co-Founder and Executive Editor Olivia Taylor Smith, followed by a Q&A.

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ABOUT LIKE A BIRD:

“There was something powerful in being seen.”

Taylia Chatterjee has never known love, and certainly has never felt it for herself. Growing up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, with her older sister Alyssa, their parents were both overbearing and emotionally distant, and despite idyllic summers in the Catskills, and gatherings with glamorous family friends, there is a sadness that emanates from the Chatterjee residence, a deep well of sorrow stemming from the racism of American society.

After a violent sexual assault, Taylia is disowned by her parents and suddenly forced to move out. As Taylia looks to the city, the ghost of her Indian grandmother dadi-ma is always one step ahead, while another more troubling ghost chases after her. Determined to have the courage to confront the pain that her family can’t face, Taylia finds work at a neighborhood café owned by single mother and spiritualist, Kat. Taylia quickly builds a constellation of friends and lovers on her own, daring herself to be open to new experiences, even as they call into question what she thought she knew about the past.

Taylia's story is about survival, coming to terms with her past and looking forward to a future she never felt she was allowed to claim. Writing this for eighteen years, poet and activist Fariha Róisín’s debut novel is an intense, provocative, and emotionally profound portrait of an inner life in turmoil and the redemptive power of community and love.

ABOUT HYSTERIA:

In Hysteria, we meet a young woman an hour into yet another alcohol-fueled, masochistic, sexual bender at her local bar.

There is a new bartender working this time, one she hasn't seen before, and who can properly make a drink. He looks familiar, and as she is consumed by shame from her behavior the previous week — hooking up with her parents' colleague and her roommate's brother — she also becomes convinced that her Brooklyn bartender is actually Sigmund Freud. They embark on a relationship, and she is forced to confront her past through the prism of their complex, revealing, and sometimes shocking meetings.

With the help of Freud — or whoever he is — she begins to untangle her Oedipal leanings, her upbringing, and her desires. Jessica Gross's debut is unflinchingly perceptive and honest, darkly funny, and unafraid of mining the deepest fears of contemporary lives.

ABOUT FARIHA RÓISÍN:

Fariha Róisín is an Australian-Canadian writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Vice, Fusion, Village Voice, and elsewhere. Her work often explores Muslim identity, race, pop culture, and film. It also examines the intersection of queerness and being a femme of color while navigating a white world. She is the author of the poetry collection, HOW TO CURE A GHOST, and the guided journal, BEING IN YOUR BODY.

ABOUT JESSICA GROSS:

Jessica Gross's writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and The Paris Review Daily, among other places. She holds an MFA in fiction from The New School, a Master's degree in cultural reporting and criticism from New York University and a Bachelor's in anthropology from Princeton University. She has received fellowships in fiction from the Yiddish Book Center (2017) and the 14th Street Y (2015-16), where she also served as editor of the LABA Journal. She currently teaches writing at Eugene Lang College at The New School. Hysteria is her first novel.

ABOUT OLIVIA TAYLOR SMITH

Olivia Taylor Smith is Co-Founder and Executive Editor of the Unnamed Press.

She is also a certified silver pin sommelier with the North American Sommelier Association and translator of the graphic novel Panthers in the Hole, about the Angola 3.