Join us on Thursday, April 30 as we welcome Devi S. Laskar to the store for the release of Midnight, at the War. She will be joined in conversation by Regina Marler. RSVP is not required, but appreciated. Seats are limited and can be guaranteed with the purchase of a book or a $3 sliding scale donation to our program.

About the book

Inspired by journalists Christiane Amanpour and Sylvia Poggioli, Midnight, at the War is a novel about a reporter chasing the biggest story of her career as she contends with a tense newsroom, a dangerous global conflict, and all the problems she’s running away from at home, by the acclaimed novelist that Megha Majumdar calls “a gem of a writer.”

Foreign correspondent Rita Das has left New York for the war-torn Middle East, a reassignment she asked for after learning she is pregnant but uncertain whether the father is her husband or her lover. As she strives to shed light on the fallouts of the war, Rita finds herself embroiled in her own conflicts with her interpreter and her news editor, her sources and her colleagues. She is unable to accept the loss of her mother and deal with her guilt for not being at her side when she died.

Fiercely independent and ambitious (and, in her journalism, deeply humane), Rita is also in denial about her need for intimate human relationships. As she goes into the field to report on the war, she grapples with the physical and emotional tolls of her pregnant body and a turbulent region where the numbing repetition of war slides suddenly into horror. When her news editor delivers urgent orders for her to return to New York, Rita is faced with a choice about how she wants to live her life as a journalist and a soon-to-be mother.

Set in the years immediately after 9/11, and drawn from Devi Laskar’s own experience as a government reporter in the 1990s and early aughts, Midnight, at the War is an exploration of love and grief, of moral ambiguity and forgiveness, of modern war and the wars we wage within ourselves.

About the author

Devi S. Laskar is the author of The Atlas of Reds and Blues, which won the Asian Pacific American Award for Literature and the Crook’s Corner Book Prize, and was named a finalist for the Northern California Book Awards. Laskar’s second novel, Circa, was a GOOP Book Club pick. In 2022, USA TODAY named Laskar among “50 AAPI authors” to read. She is an alumna of the OpEd Project and VONA and holds an MFA from Columbia University. Originally from North Carolina, Laskar now lives in Northern California.

Regina Marler writes for the New York Review of Books and elsewhere. She edited Selected Letters of Vanessa Bell and Queer Beats: How the Beats Turned America on to Sex and wrote Bloomsbury Pie: The Making of the Bloomsbury Boom. She lives, writes, and gardens in the San Francisco Bay Area.

About the bookstore

The Booksmith is an independent bookstore located in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco since 1976.

Please note:

• Check-in for the event will begin at 6:45pm.
• Priced ticket holders (Book+seat, Pay it Forward!+seat) will have seats held until 7pm. Arrivals after 7pm will be allowed admission, but seats are not guaranteed.
• General admission ticket holders will be offered seats at check-in on a first-come, first-served basis. May be standing room.
• Space at the door on the day of the event is usually available, but not guaranteed.
• Books will be for sale on the night of the event.
• ADA accessible. Bathrooms on site during event hours.
• Events typically end between 8:30 and 9pm.
• Questions? [email protected]