Edie Richter Is Not Alone by Rebecca Handler and Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket a.k.a. Daniel Handler.

Local authors Rebbecca and Daniel Handler will discuss their latest books, their process and how they approaches the work of writing.

In person event. Wine, cheese, and great company provided. Livestreaming not available. A video recording of this event will be posted to YouTube within a week.

Edie Richter Is Not Alone by Rebecca Handler

Funny, acerbic Edie Richter is married, childless by choice, and moving from San Francisco to Perth, Australia. She leaves behind a sister and mother still mourning the recent death of her father. Before the move, Edie and her husband were content, if socially awkward—given her disinclination for small talk.

In Perth, Edie finds herself in a remarkably isolated but verdant corner of the world, but Edie has a secret: she committed an unthinkable act that she can barely admit to herself. In some ways, the landscape mirrors her own complicated inner life, and rather than escaping her past, Edie is increasingly forced to confront what she’s done. Everybody, from the wildlife to her new neighbors, is keen to engage, and Edie does her best to start fresh. But her relationship with her husband is fraying, and the beautiful memories of her father are heartbreaking, and impossible to stop. Something, in the end, has to give.

Written in clean spare prose that is nevertheless brimming with the richness and wry humor of the protagonist's observations and idiosyncrasies, Edie Richter is Not Alone is Rebecca Handler’s debut novel. It is both deeply shocking and entirely quotidian: a story about a woman's visceral confrontation with the fundamental meaning of humanity.

Rebecca Handler is a writer who lives and works in San Francisco. onewomanparty features her flash fiction and non-fiction essays. Rebecca’s stories have been published and awarded in several anthologies. Her debut novel, Edie Richter is Not Alone (Unnamed Press), was published on March 9th 2021.

Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket a.k.a. Daniel Handler.

This brief, stand-alone novel, written for all ages, is the “true” story of a single day in the life of Lemony Snicket, one that begins with a puzzling note under his door: You had poison for breakfast. Mr. Snicket spends the rest of the book following a winding trail of clues to solve the mystery of his own demise. The plot is tidy and compact, with a little twist at the end, but the digressions and asides—on subjects as wide-ranging as the proper way to prepare an egg, the amusing absurdity of Zeno’s Paradox, and the sublime pleasure of swimming in open water, among many others—are the real meat of the book. The narrator’s voice will be familiar to fans of A Series of Unfortunate Events—here is the same wry, clever, and somewhat jaundiced narrator of the bestselling series—but there are no children in this book. And while the prose is appropriate for young readers, this story is set firmly in the puzzling world of adults. These are Lemony Snicket’s grown up, even profound, philosophical musings, and they offer fascinating insights into the inner workings of his mind for the first time. 
Daniel Handler is the author of seven novels, including Why We Broke Up, All The Dirty Parts and Bottle Grove. As Lemony Snicket, he is the author of far too many books for children, including Poison for Breakfast, the four-volume All The Wrong Questions and the thirteen-volume A Series of Unfortunate Events, which has been adapted for screen and television. He lives in San Francisco with the illustrator Lisa Brown, to whom he is married, and their son.