Ismet Prcic presents 'Unspeakable Home: A Novel'

Third Place Books is thrilled to welcome Ismet Prcic to our Ravenna store! Prcic will be discussing his new novel, , a stunningly original, stylistically brilliant, and brutally honest novel from an award-winning Bosnian refugee and writer who, decades after escaping his war-torn home country looks back on his childhood, imploded relationships, and battles with addiction—offering powerful insight into the human cost of conflict. This event is free and open to the public.

For important updates, registration is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!

This event is free to attend. Registration is required in advance.

It’s been two years since our narrator divorced his beloved and lost his safest and most adoring home when he fled Bosnia as a teenager. The marriage couldn’t survive his brokenness, the trauma so entrenched and insidious that it became impossible to communicate to anyone outside of himself—even the person he loved most. But, as he writes in the first of many courageously candid fan letters to the comedian Bill Burr, he knows he must try.
A linguistically adventurous, structurally ambitious, and emotionally brave odyssey, Unspeakable Home takes us through the memories and confessions of our refugee narrator as he reflects on his bomb-ravaged childhood, the implosion of his relationships, and an agonizing battle with alcoholism. As multiple narrators surface in fragments with increasingly tenuous connections to reality, Prcic unearths the psychological cost of exile and shame with a roving, kinetic energy and a sharp, searching sense of humor. What emerges is a vivid and poignant exploration of the stories we create to hide the deepest parts of our identity from ourselves, as well as a hard-won, life-affirming promise of redemption.

Ismet Prcic was born in Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1977 and immigrated to America in 1996. His first novel, Shards, was a New York Times Notable Book, a Chicago Sun-Times Best Book of the Year, as well as the winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize and the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for first fiction.

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.

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