Lucas Schaefer + August Thompson: The Slip

Lucas Schaefer + August Thompson: The Slip

Join us for an in-person event with debut author Lucas Schaefer for a discussion of his debut novel The Slip.

By The Strand Book Store

Date and time

Starts on Thursday, June 12 · 7pm EDT.

Location

Strand Book Store

828 Broadway 3rd Floor, Rare Book Room New York, NY 10003

Refund Policy

Refunds up to 1 day before event

About this event

  • Event lasts 1 hour 30 minutes

Join us for an in-person event with debut author Lucas Schaefer for a discussion of his debut novel The Slip. Joining Lucas in conversation is acclaimed writer August Thompson. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.


Can’t make the event? Purchase a signed copy of The Slip here.


ACCESSIBILITY:

Strand Book Store is an ADA compliant venue. The event space is accessible via elevator. Please ask a Strand employee upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.

ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our events team at events@strandbooks.com by 5/29 to request.

For further information on accessibility in this space, or to make a request, please contact events@strandbooks.com.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2025 by LitHub, Debutiful, and CrimeReads.

For readers of Jonathan Franzen and Nathan Hill comes a haymaker of an American novel about a missing teenage boy, cases of fluid and mistaken identity, and the transformative power of boxing.

Austin, Texas: It’s the summer of 1998, and there’s a new face on the scene at Terry Tucker’s Boxing Gym. Sixteen-year-old Nathaniel Rothstein has never felt comfortable in his own skin, but under the tutelage of a swaggering, Haitian-born ex-fighter named David Dalice, he begins to come into his own. Even the boy’s slightly stoned uncle, Bob Alexander, who is supposed to be watching him for the summer, notices the change. Nathaniel is happier, more confident—tanner, even. Then one night he vanishes, leaving little trace behind.

Across the city, Charles Rex, now going simply by “X,” has been undergoing a teenage transformation of his own, trolling the phone sex hotline that his mother works, seeking an outlet for everything that feels wrong about his body, looking for intimacy and acceptance in a culture that denies him both. As a surprising and unlikely romance blooms, X feels, for a moment, like he might have found the safety he’s been searching for. But it's never that simple.

More than a decade later, Nathaniel’s uncle Bob receives a shocking tip, propelling him to open his own investigation into his nephew’s disappearance. The resulting search involves gymgoers past and present, including a down-on-his-luck twin and his opportunistic brother; a rookie cop determined to prove herself; and Alexis Cepeda, a promising lightweight, who crossed the US-Mexico border when he was only fourteen, carrying with him a license bearing the wrong name and face.

Bobbing and weaving across the ever-shifting canvas of a changing country, The Slip is an audacious, daring look at sex and race in America that builds to an unforgettable collision in the center of the ring.

Photo credit: Greg Marshall

Lucas Schaefer lives with his family in Austin. The Slip is his first novel.

Photo credit: P.R. Brown

August Thompson was born and raised in the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire, before he attended middle school in West LA. After surviving California optimism, he moved to NYC for his bachelor’s, studied in Berlin, and taught English in Spain for two years. He recently received his MFA at New York University’s creative writing program as a Goldwater Fellow.

Tickets

Organized by

Strand Book Store was born in 1927 on Fourth Avenue on what was then called “Book Row,” an area that covered six city blocks and housed forty-eight bookstores. Our founder Benjamin Bass was all of twenty-five years old when he began his modest used bookstore and sought to create a place where books would be loved, and book lovers could congregate. Ninety years and a move over to Broadway, the Strand is still run by the Bass Family and is home to four floors of over 2.5 million used, new, and rare books, a wide array of bookish gifts, and fun literary events held almost every night of the week. From the dollar carts outside to the Rare Book Room on the third floor, and cheeky graffiti-ing throughout the store courtesy of Steve “EPSO” Powers, the iconic store now stands testament a place for book lovers to explore.