In-Store: Ariel Courage: Bad Nature w/ Alexandra Tanner

Event guidelines:

• All attendees are strongly encouraged to wear a face mask at all times.
• Tickets are limited to restrict capacity at our store, and each ticket will include either a copy of the featured book or a $10 Books Are Magic gift card.
• Additional copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.
• A signing will follow the talk.
• Home address is collected for contact tracing purposes; it will not be used otherwise.
• The event will also be livestreamed for free here: https://youtube.com/live/eL0TmMaRuhw
• As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event, even if you have a ticket; email us and we'll work it out.

If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request accessibility accommodations, please contact [email protected].

Armed with a terminal diagnosis, a grudge, and a rental car, Hester sets out to fulfill her lifelong dream of killing her father in this brilliantly subversive and bleakly debut funny novel.

When Hester is diagnosed with terminal cancer on her fortieth birthday, she knows immediately what she must do: abandon her possessions and drive to California to K*ll her estranged father. With no friends or family tying her to the life she’s built in New York City, she quits her wildly lucrative job in corporate law and starts driving west. She hasn’t made it far when she runs into John, an environmental activist in need of a ride to different superfund sites across the United States. From five-star Midwestern hotels to cultish Southwestern compounds, the two slowly make their way across the country. But will the revelations they experience along the way dissuade Hester from her goal?
Ragingly singular and surprisingly moving, Bad Nature is a story of stunning detours and twists until its final destination. Part road-trip novel, part revenge tale, part lament for our ongoing ecological crisis, it’s ultimately a deft examination of the indulgence of holding grudges, moral ambivalence, and the eternal possibility of redemption.

Ariel Courage is a graduate of the Brooklyn College MFA program, where she was editor-in-chief of the Brooklyn Review. She’s currently an assistant fiction editor at Agni. Her short work has appeared in Guernica, New Limestone Review, and The End. She was also a 2019 Kimmel Harding Nelson resident.

Alexandra Tanner is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, NY. Her stories, essays, and reviews appear in Granta, The New York Times Book Review, The Baffler, and Jewish Currents, among other outlets. Her first novel, , was named one of the best books of 2024 by The New Yorker, Vogue, the BBC, The Washington Post, NPR, and more; it’s out now in hardcover wherever books are sold, and the paperback—due in April 2025—is available for preorder.

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