KGB Bar

An Open City KGB reading to launch the publication of

LIVING ROOM: A Novel by Rachel Sherman
(Open City Books, Paperback Original publication date: October 20, 2009):

Rachel Sherman holds an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. Her short stories have appeared in McSweeney’s, Fence, Open City, Conjunctions, and n+1, among other publications. Her first book, The First Hurt, was short-listed for the Story Prize and the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and was named one of the 25 Books to Remember in 2006 by the New York Public Library. She teaches writing at Rutgers and Columbia Universities and lives in Brooklyn.

Praise for LIVING ROOM:

“A riveting debut novel… Unsentimental yet deeply felt, this tale examines what bubbles under the surface of a supposedly happy Long Island family.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Here we have the fractured lives of three generations of women told with zero sentimentality and a huge amount of heart. Living Room is edgy, smart, funny, and altogether human. Rachel Sherman is the real deal.”
—Dani Shapiro, author of Black and White

“A compelling and unsentimental novel about the loneliness that exists just below the surface of a family. Sherman skillfully and movingly renders the inner lives of three generations of women as they try—or don’t try—to reconcile the distance between their desires and their actual lives.”
—Dana Spiotta, author of Eat the Document

“Living Room is that rare book that actually concerns itself with how we live now. Rachel Sherman’s lost Long Island women throb with life and she has the courage to look at these lives honestly, without pity but not without love.”
—Joshua Furst, author of The Sabotage Café

“Rachel Sherman’s Long Island is a desolate place: lawns, indoor carpeting, a wet couch some high school students dragged into the woods to smoke pot on. The au pair has acne and grandma can’t seem to turn off the caps lock key for emails. Sherman, incredibly, is in no hurry to leave this place.  She tells it all. The result is a funny, scary, dirty, and, in the end, a very moving, generous book.”
—Keith Gessen, author of All the Sad Young Literary Men