Gulf Coast Reads - Meet the Author (Houston, Pearland: upper-class, earthquake)

[nana053]

The Kickoff event at the Houston Public Library was on August 30th and she spoke at the Barbara Bush Library in Spring on September 8th. This is a chance for those on the south side of town to

Meet the Author

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The author of One Amazing Thing will discuss her book at the Westside Event Center

Sponsored by the Manvel Library Association, the Friends of the Pearland Westside Library an the Friends of the Pearland Library

Late afternoon sun sneaks through the windows of a passport and visa office in an unnamed American city. Most customers and even most office workers have come and gone, but nine people remain. A punky teenager with an unexpected gift. An upper-class Caucasian couple whose relationship is disintegrating. A young Muslim-American man struggling with the fallout of 9/11. A graduate student haunted by a question about love. An African-American ex-soldier searching for redemption. A Chinese grandmother with a secret past. And two visa office workers on the verge of an adulterous affair.

When an earthquake rips through the afternoon lull, trapping these nine characters together, their focus first jolts to their collective struggle to survive. There's little food. The office begins to flood. Then, at a moment when the psychological and emotional stress seems nearly too much for them to bear, the young graduate student suggests that each tell a personal tale, "one amazing thing" from their lives, which they have never told anyone before. And as their surprising stories of romance, marriage, family, political upheaval, and self-discovery unfold against the urgency of their life-or-death circumstances, the novel proves the transcendent power of stories and the meaningfulness of human expression itself.

There will be some Indian food to taste and some Mediterranean food to taste at the meeting as well.