Leigh McMullan Abramson presents "A Likely Story"

If you would prefer to order your ticket by phone, you may call Wellesley Books at 781-431-1160.

Your $5 ticket can be put towards a copy of A Likely Story bought at the event. Alternatively, you can buy the book now and your entry ticket will be free. Books will be available for pickup at the event. Please note that you must have bought your copy from Wellesley Books in order to have the author sign it at the event.

Please note that we cannot issue refunds within 48 hours of the event.

COVID Protocols

• Masks are NOT required, but they are encouraged.

ABOUT THE BOOK

"A standout debut about family, secrets, and the costs of protecting a precious legacy." –Fiona Davis, author

The only child of an iconic American novelist discovers a shocking tangle of family secrets that upends everything she thought she knew about her parents, her gilded childhood, and her own stalled writing career in this brilliantly observed standout debut.

Growing up in the nineties in New York City as the only child of famous parents was both a blessing and a curse for Isabelle Manning. Her beautiful society hostess mother, Claire, and New York Times bestselling author father, Ward, were the city’s intellectual It couple. Ward’s glamorous obligations often took him away from Isabelle, but Claire made sure her childhood was always filled with magic and love.

Now an adult, all Isabelle wants is to be a successful writer like her father but after many false starts and the unexpected death of her mother, she faces her upcoming thirty-fifth birthday alone and on the verge of a breakdown. Her anxiety only skyrockets when she uncovers some shocking truths about her parents and begins wondering if everything she knew about her family was all based on an elaborate lie.

Wry, wise, and propulsive, A Likely Story is punctuated with fragments of a compulsively readable book-within-a-book about a woman determined to steal back the spotlight from a man who has cheated his way to the top. The characters seem eerily familiar but is the plot based on fact? And more importantly, who is the author?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Leigh McMullan Abramson has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, Tablet, Audubon, Town & Country and more. A former ballet dancer and practicing attorney, she does pro bono work representing minors in immigration proceedings. She and her family live in New York and Vermont.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Rita Zoey Chin is the author of the widely praised memoir, Let the Tornado Come. Hailed by The Huffington Post as a “euphoric ode to the human spirit” and by Oprah.com as a “powerful story to pass onto a friend,” Let the Tornado Come was named a Boston Globe “Summer Reads” pick, an Elle Readers Prize pick, and one of Flavorwire’s “10 Nonfiction Books That Will Make You Smarter.”

Zoey holds an MFA from the University of Maryland, has taught at Towson University, and teaches at Grub Street in Boston, as well as at retreats and conferences near and far. Some of her other writing can be found in Guernica, Tin House, Blackbird Review, NY Arts Magazine, Marie Claire, Flash Fiction America (W.W. Norton & Company, forthcoming in February 2023), Orion, and The Boston Globe.

Her first novel, The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern, called “an imaginitve debut” by the New York Times and “a work of literary excellence” by the Southern Literary Review, was published in October 2022 by Melville House.

Zoey is devoted to kindness to all creatures, and she spends as much time as possible in nature with her dogs and horse—her greatest teachers. If she’s not out in the elements, you might find her wielding a torch in her metalsmithing studio, making amulets with silver and stones. A perpetual seeker of magic, she is currently working on her wingless flying skills. She has a long way to go.