We are thrilled to welcome Saba Sams and Eley Williams to the shop. Saba Sams, the multi-award-winning author of Send Nudes is back with her debut novel GUNK; a nuanced exploration of friendship, queerness and love. Eley Williams' MODERATE TO POOR, OCCASIONALLY GOOD, is a poignant and playful collection of short stories exploring the nature of relationships both intimate and transient.
Doors: 6.30pm, starts: 6.45pm
Tickets are £4. Admission is free when purchasing a copy of either book.
About the books:
About GUNK:
Jules has been divorced from her ex-husband Leon for -five years, but she still works alongside him at Gunk, the grotty student nightclub he owns in central Brighton. She spends her nights serving shots and watching, from behind the bar, as Leon flirts with students on the dancefloor.
But then Leon hires nineteen-year-old Nim to work the bar - and her arrival jolts Jules awake for the - first time in years. When Nim discovers she's pregnant, Jules agrees to help. As the months pass, and the relationship between the two women grows increasingly intimate and perplexing, it emerges that Nim has her own unexpected gifts to give.
Now, alone in her small flat, Jules is holding a baby, just twenty-four hours old, who still smells of Nim. But no one knows where Nim is, or if she's coming back. What could the future - for Jules, Nim, and this unnamed baby - possibly look like?
Raw, exhilarating, tender and wise, Gunk is an electrifying debut novel exploring love and desire, safety and destruction, chaos and control - and family in all its forms.
About MODERATE TO POOR, OCCASIONALLY GOOD:
A courtroom sketch artist delights in committing portraits of their lover to paper but their need to capture likenesses forever is revealed to have darker, more complex intentions. A child's schoolyard crush on a saint marks a confrontation with the reality of a teenage body in flux. Elsewhere, an editor of canned laughter loses their confidence and seeks divine intervention, and an essayist annotates their thoughts on Keats by way of internet-gleaned sex tips.
Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good hums with fossicking language and ingenious experiments in form and considers notions of playfulness, authenticity and care as it holds relationships to account: their sweet misunderstandings, soured reflections, queer wish fulfilments and shared, held breaths.
About the authors:
Saba Sams was named as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2023. Her debut collection Send Nudes won the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2022 and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2023; her story ‘Blue 4eva’ won the BBC National Short Story Award 2022. She was shortlisted for the White Review Short Story Prize in 2019 and her work has been featured in publications including Granta, Stinging Fly and Five Dials. She is from Brighton and lives in London.
Eley Williams is the author of a collection of short stories, Attrib., which was awarded the Republic of Consciousness Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize 2018. Her second book, The Liar's Dictionary, won the 2021 Betty Trask Award and was a Guardian Book of the Year.
Tickets are £4.00. Admission is free when purchasing a copy of either of the books. If you cannot make the event but would like a dedicated copy of the book, please email events.manchester@blackwell.co.uk or call us on 0161 274 3331.
Our event format is usually a 45 minute discussion between the author and interviewer, followed by a chance for audience members to ask questions. There will be the opportunity to get your book signed/dedicated after the event. Events are a brilliant opportunity to discover new books, meet authors and likeminded readers and learn something new.
