Lynn Steger Strong's THE FLOAT TEST with Rebecca Traister

Mechanics' Hall and Back Cove Books welcome authors Lynn Steger Strong and Rebecca Traister for a conversation, centering around Steger Strong's latest book, The Float Test.

Lynn Steger Strong is the critically acclaimed author of Flight, a sophisticated and layered novel about sisters, betrayal, love, and climate change. The Float Test is for readers of The Dutch House and The Most Fun We Ever Had.

The event begins at 6:00 PM (doors 5:30 PM), the event will be approximately 75-minutes, followed by a Q&A.

No one turned away for lack of funds.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Kenner siblings are at odds. Jenn is a harried mom struggling under the weight of family obligations. Fred is a novelist who can’t write, maybe because she’s lost faith in storytelling itself. Jude is a recovering corporate lawyer with her own story to tell, and a grudge against her former favorite sister, Fred. George, the baby, is estranged from his wife and harboring both a secret about his former employer and an ill-advised crush on one of his sisters’ friends. Gathered after a major loss, each sibling needs the others more than ever—if only they could trust each other.

A family story is, of course, only as honest as the person telling it. This family story in particular is fraught with secrets about kids and sex and jobs and why the Kenner matriarch had a gun in her underwear drawer. The biggest secret of all though is the secret of what happened between Jude and Fred to create such a rift between the two once-close middle sisters. Over the course of a sweltering Florida summer, the Kenner siblings will revisit what it means to be a family and, if they are smart and kind and lucky, come out on the other side better for having each other.

A rich exploration of family, ambition, secrets, and love, The Float Test is an elegant and gripping testament to the power that family has to both nurture and destroy us from a critically acclaimed writer working at the top of her craft.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Lynn Steger Strong is the author of the novels Flight, Want, and Hold Still. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Harper’s Bazaar, Los Angeles Times, The Paris Review, The Cut, New York Magazine, and elsewhere. She teaches writing at Princeton and Columbia University.

Rebecca Traister is writer at large for New York magazine. A National Magazine Award winner, she has written about politics and culture from a feminist perspective for The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post and Elle. She is the author of three books, 2010's Big Girls Don't Cry, and the New York Times best-sellers All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation (2016), and Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger (2018). Traister won the 2017 Sidney Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis. She is at work on a new book, tentatively titled Normal Was Just a Dream.

PARKING & TRANSPORTATION

Mechanics’ Hall is located at 519 Congress Street. Our main entrance is between Loquat Shop and the Art Mart. The Greater Portland Metro’s Congress & Casco Street Stop is directly in front of our building, served by .

Parking is available at the , which has entrances on Casco and Brown Street, with a rate of $5 per hour. Metered street parking is available on Congress, Casco, Cumberland, Free Street, and other nearby streets. Free hourly street parking is available between Parris and Alder Street.

ACCESSIBILITY

To enter our building, patrons will need to navigate a single step. There is a wheelchair-accessible elevator and a ramp available upon request.

If you have a wheelchair or need accessibility accommodations/questions please contact us at or 207-773-8396.

Host or Publisher Mechanics' Hall (Maine)