Garth Greenwell – Small Rain
WithGarth Greenwell
In conversation withRosa Campbell
On:18th September 2024, 7:00pm - 8:00pm
Attendance options:
It's an honour to welcome Garth Greenwell to the bookshop for an event to celebrate the publication of his highly-anticipated novel, Small Rain. In the words of Colm Tóibín, Small Rain is 'a true achievement, written with engaged humanity and a great command of style – we can't wait for Greenwell to tell us all about it. He will be in conversation with poet and academic Rosa Campbell.
This event will take place in the bookshop with an in-person audience. There will be a signing after the event.
Vouchers can be redeemed on the night of the event against a single copy of Small Rain – we will have a list of attendees with vouchers to be redeemed. Please note that only one voucher can be redeemed per book.
About Small Rain:
A medical crisis brings one man close to death – and to love, art, and beauty – in a profound and luminous novel by award-winning author Garth Greenwell.
A poet’s life is turned inside out by a sudden, wrenching pain. The pain brings him to his knees, and eventually to the ICU. Confined to bed, plunged into the dysfunctional American healthcare system, he struggles to understand what is happening to his body, as someone who has lived for many years in his mind.
This is a searching, sweeping novel set at the furthest edges of human experience, where the forces that give life value – art, memory, poetry, music, care – are thrown into sharp relief. Time expands and contracts. Sudden intimacies bloom. Small Rain surges beyond the hospital to encompass a radiant vision of human life: our shared vulnerability, the limits and possibilities of sympathy, the ideal of art and the fragile dream of America. Above all, this is a love story of the most unexpected kind.
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:
Garth Greenwell Author
Garth Greenwell is the author of What Belongs to You, which won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was a finalist for six other awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His second book of fiction, Cleanness, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, the L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize, and France’s Prix Sade (Deuxième sélection). Greenwell is also the co-editor, with R.O. Kwon, of the anthology KINK. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, A Public Space, and VICE, and he has written nonfiction for The New Yorker, the London Review of Books, and Harper’s, among others. He writes regularly about literature, film, art and music for his Substack, To a Green Thought. He is the recipient of many honours for his work, including a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2021 Vursell Award for prose style from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Rosa Campbell Chair
Rosa Campbell is an Associate Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature at the University of St Andrews, specialising in twentieth and twenty-first century poetry, especially by women and queer writers. She is also a writer; her poetry has appeared in various places, including Oxford Poetry, fourteen poems, Perverse, Ambit, Gutter and SPAM, and her first book, Pothos—a (sort-of) memoir about grief and houseplants—was published by Broken Sleep Books in 2021.
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.