Booksmith is thrilled to welcome back Emma Cline, the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls, for her new novel The Guest. She will be joined in conversation by neighborhood hero Susan Steinberg, author most recently of Machine. Do yourself a favor and join us!

Please note: advance sales have ended, but we will have space available at the door – this will go on a first come, first serve basis, with no guarantee of admission for walk-ups. If you need tickets, we recommend you arrive no later than 7pm.

Please note:

• Masks will be required throughout the duration of the event, capacity will be limited to allow indoor distancing, and we'll have extra ventilation in place. Protocols are subject to change.
• Because we’re limiting capacity, we can't guarantee we'll have space for walk-ins. The best way to ensure you’ll get a seat is to order the Book + Seat ticket through this link; you can also RSVP for a free seat right here while they last.
• We are happy to offer *signed copies* of The Guest: order a Book + Seat ticket bundle if you'd like to pick up a signed copy at the event, or order here if you just want a signed copy and no admission.
• Order Susan Steinberg's books here.
• If we feel it is not safe to gather, as the event gets closer, we will pivot to a virtual event and your registration will remain valid.
• Questions? Write [email protected].

About the book

“Alex drained her wineglass, then her water glass. The ocean looked calm, a black darker than the sky. A ripple of anxiety made her palms go damp. It seemed suddenly very tenuous to believe that anything would stay hidden, that she could successfully pass from one world to another.”

Summer is coming to a close on the East End of Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome.

A misstep at a dinner party, and the older man she’s been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city.

With few resources and a waterlogged phone, but gifted with an ability to navigate the desires of others, Alex stays on Long Island and drifts like a ghost through the hedged lanes, gated driveways, and sun-blasted dunes of a rarefied world that is, at first, closed to her. Propelled by desperation and a mutable sense of morality, she spends the week leading up to Labor Day moving from one place to the next, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake.

Taut, propulsive, and impossible to look away from, Emma Cline’s The Guest is a spellbinding literary achievement.

About the authors

Emma Cline is the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls and the story collection Daddy. The Girls was a finalist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and was the winner of the Shirley Jackson Award. Cline’s stories have been published in The New Yorker, Granta, The Paris Review and The Best American Short Stories anthologies. She received an O’Henry Award and the Plimpton Prize from The Paris Review, and was chosen as one of Granta‘s Best Young American Novelists. Author photo by DV DeVincentis.

Susan Steinberg is the author of four books of fiction: Machine (Graywolf Press), Spectacle (Graywolf Press), Hydroplane (FC2), and The End of Free Love (FC2). The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a United States Artists Fellowship, Steinberg has also been awarded the Pushcart Prize and a National Magazine Award. Her stories have appeared in McSweeney's, Conjunctions, The Gettysburg Review, American Short Fiction, Boulevard, Quarterly West, Denver Quarterly, The Massachusetts Review, and other journals and magazines. She teaches at the University of San Francisco. Author photo by Noah Doely.