Lily King's 'Heart the Lover' with Susan Conley

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“Time moves like memory in Heart the Lover—urgent, intimate, elusive. What does it mean to carry a story you never get to finish? With breathtaking precision, Lily King writes about love that lingers and choices that haunt. I read it in a single, breathless sitting.”

—Ruth Ozeki

You knew I’d write a book about you someday.

Our narrator understands good love stories—their secrets and subtext, their highs and their free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the simple rules.

In the fall of her senior year of college, she meets two star students from her 17th-Century Lit class: Sam and Yash. Best friends living off-campus in the elegant house of a professor on sabbatical, the boys invite her into their intoxicating world of academic fervor, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games. They nickname her Jordan, and she quickly discovers the pleasures of friendship, love and her own intellectual ambition. Youthful passion is unpredictable though, and she soon finds herself at the center of a charged and intricate triangle. As graduation comes and goes, choices made will alter these three lives forever.

Decades later, Jordan is living the life she dreamed of, and the vulnerable days of her youth seem comfortably behind her. But when a surprise visit and unexpected news brings the past crashing into the present, Jordan returns to a world she left behind and is forced to confront the decisions and deceptions of her younger self.

Written with the superb wit and emotional sensitivity fans and critics of Lily King have come to adore, Heart the Lover is a deeply moving story that celebrates love, friendship, and the transformative nature of forgiveness. Wise, unforgettable, and with a delightful connective thread to Writers & Lovers, this is King at her very best, affirming her as a masterful chronicler of the human experience and one of the finest novelists at work today.

Tuesday, September 30 at 7:00 PM (doors 6:30 PM). $7 for Mechanics' Hall Members, $10 for General Admission, $33 for a copy of Heart the Lover, and admission

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lily King is the New York Times bestselling author of six novels, including Euphoria and Writers & Lovers, and the story collection Five Tuesdays in Winter. Her work has won numerous prizes and awards, including the Kirkus Prize, the New England Book Award for Fiction, the Maine Book Award for Fiction, and a Whiting Award. She lives in Portland, Maine.

PARKING & TRANSPORTATION

The Greater Portland Metro’s Congress & Casco Street Stop is directly in front of our building, served by routes 1, 7, 8, and 9B.

Parking is available at the Arts District Garage, which has entrances on Casco and Brown Street, with a rate of $5 per hour. Metered street parking is available on Congress, Casco, Cumberland, Free Street, and other nearby streets. Free hourly street parking is available between Parris and Alder Street.

ACCESSIBILITY

To enter our building, patrons will need to navigate a single step. There is a wheelchair-accessible elevator and a ramp available upon request.

If you need accessibility accommodations/questions please contact us at programming@mainemechanics.org or 207-773-8396.