Green Apple Book Talk “The Embassy Wife” w/ Katie Crouch and Rachel Levin

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Join us on Wednesday, September 22 at 6pm PT when Katie Crouch discusses her latest novel, The Embassy Wife, with Rachel Levin at 9th Ave!

Masks Required for In-Person Event
Join us online by registering at the link below

Zoom Registration
https://us02web.zoom.us/…/reg…/WN_o3CKo2AqQ1GQEyWEmWdivA

Praise for Embassy Wife

“One of the novel’s greatest strengths is the omniscient third-person narration that oscillates focus between main and minor characters. The structure helps heighten the tension between characters, the past and the present, and Namibians and Americans. In addition to sketching complex characters with rich backstories, Crouch excels at moving the plot forward while not missing any opportunity to observe the human condition. With wit and tenderness, the novel explores the complicated nature of race, power, marriage, colonization, diplomacy, and community. A sharp, funny, page-turning romp.” – Kirkus Reviews

“Crouch’s…knowledge of expat life adds realism to this observant, funny satire. Unpredictable twists lead to an ending where everyone may not get what they want, but they get what they need. Suggest this one to fans of Meg Wolitzer and Maria Semple.” – Booklist

“Katie Crouch is an incredible writer – deft, fearless, super-smart and compassionate – and EMBASSYWIFE is one of the funniest, sharpest, most insightful novels I’ve read in a long time. It’s also a flat-out page-turner: I read it in a single, feverish sitting; then again, a second time, trying to figure out how she pulled off such an intricately constructed narrative that manages to read so effortlessly. A tremendous novel by a writer who surprises and moves us with each new book. I can’t recommend this novel highly enough.”—Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans

“Keenly observed and expertly crafted, Katie Crouch’s EMBASSY WIFE is a wickedly irresistible novel.”—Natalie Baszile, author of Queen Sugar

About Embassy Wife

Amanda Evans is a trailing spouse: she has just arrived in Namibia, mere weeks after giving up her lucrative Silicon Valley job, as her husband, Mark, has accepted a Fulbright. Their marriage, which seemed solid in the safety of home, feels tenuous in the glaring heat of the Kalahari, and when their daughter becomes involved an international conflict, lines are drawn in the sand.

Meanwhile, Persephone Wilder is the wife of an American diplomat already stationed in Namibia. She takes her job as an Embassy Wife seriously, and employs an intricate set of rules to navigate such problems as: how to dress in hundred-degree weather without showing too much skin, how not to look drunk at embassy functions, and how to eat roasted oryx with grace. However, she suspects her husband may not actually the ambassador’s general counsel, but in fact, a secret agent in the CIA. Despite Persephone’s personal issues, she is ever the embassy wife, and graciously takes the new trailing spouse, Amanda under her wing.

But once Amanda, Mark and their daughter settle into the sub-Saharan desert, it becomes clear that Mark, who lived in Namibia two decades earlier, had other reasons for returning to African soil. Mark, it seems, has unfinished business from twenty years prior, and this journey is actually a quest to find a woman he left behind.

Propulsive and provocative, subversive, smart and funny, EMBASSY WIFE compellingly explores the limits of human resiliency and loyalty, asking: How far will Amanda go to keep her family intact? How much corruptness can Persephone purposefully ignore?

And what, exactly, does it mean to be an American abroad when you don’t like your country anymore?

About Katie Crouch

Katie Crouch is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Girls in Trucks. She is also the author of Men and Dogs, Abroad and the YA series The Magnolia League. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Slate, and Salon. A MacDowell Fellow, she teaches at Dartmouth College and lives in Vermont.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.