Anne de Marcken - It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over
WithAnne de Marcken
In conversation withHeather Parry
On:14th May 2025, 7:00pm - 8:00pm
Attendance options:
We are delighted to be welcoming Anne de Marcken to the bookshop for an event. She will be discussing her novel It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over with fellow writer Heather Parry. The novel won the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction 2024 and the judging panel said the following about it: 'Haunting, poignant, and surprisingly funny, Anne de Marcken’s book is a tightly written tour de force about what it is to be human.’
This event will take place in the bookshop with an in-person audience, as well as a livestream for attendees watching from home. There will be a signing after the event.
In-person vouchers can be redeemed on the night of the event against a single copy of It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over – we will have a list of attendees with vouchers to be redeemed. Please note that only one voucher can be redeemed per book. Livestream vouchers are valid until the day after the event and can be redeemed on our website against a single copy of It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over.
About It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over:
The heroine of the spare and haunting It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over is voraciously alive in the afterlife. Adrift yet keenly aware, she notes every bizarre detail of her new reality. And even if she has forgotten her name and much of what connects her to her humanity, she remembers with an implacable and nearly unbearable longing the place where she knew herself and was known—where she loved and was loved.
Traveling across the landscapes of time and of space, heading always west, and carrying a dead but laconically opinionated crow in her chest, our undead narrator encounters and loses parts of her body and her self in one terrifying, hilarious, and heartbreaking situation after another. A tale for our dispossessed times, and one of the sharpest and funniest novels of recent years, It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over plumbs mortality and how it changes everything, except possibly love.
Please note: Tickets for our events are non-refundable. Professional photography and videography may take place during this event. Thank you for your understanding.
Participants:
Anne de Marcken Author
Anne de Marcken is a queer interdisciplinary artist and writer living on unceded land of the Coast Salish people in Olympia, WA, in the United States.
Heather Parry Chair
Heather Parry is a writer of fiction and nonfiction. Her debut novel, Orpheus Builds a Girl, was shortlisted for the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year award and longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. She is also the author of a short story collection, This Is My Body, Given For You, and a short nonfiction book, Electric Dreams: On Sex Robots and the Failed Promises of Capitalism, and writes the Substack general observations on eggs. She was raised in Rotherham and lives in Glasgow with her partner and their cats, Fidel and Ernesto.
The venue
The Portobello Bookshop
46 Portobello High Street
Edinburgh
EH15 1DA
Telephone: 0131 629 6756
Website: www.theportobellobookshop.com
Wheelchair Access
We have a ramp at the front of the shop which has a ratio of 1:10 and loading capacity of 300kg, and so should be able to be used by most wheelchair users or those with mobility vehicles. The front doors are fully automated. Our shop interior is designed to allow access throughout for wheelchair users and prams, though please note there is only 700mm wide clearance to access the staff toilet.
Sound
We use a PA system to enhance the audio at our live events. We also have a hearing loop system installed, if you’d like to use our loop system during an event please let us know and we’ll make sure we have it set up and connected to the live audio feed during the event. If you wish to attend an event and require BSL interpretation, please give us a few weeks notice and we’ll do our best to arrange an interpreter.