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Hernan Diaz at First Parish Church
Past event
Featured Book
Ply - A Novel
The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Trust turns to the future with a novel that examines the place of technology in the American imagination
Centuries from now, at the dawn of a historical epoch filled with both uncertainty and promise, an orphan is adrift in a city on the brink of a great transformation. The state has been dismantled, and humans are reinventing social bonds and learning new ways to coexist with nature. Following a childhood defined by loss, survival, and found family, the orphan grows up to become a “pincher,” someone who steals electricity from the grid to sell it on the black market. It’s a high-risk life, one that brings her into a rich downtown art and music scene where she powers underground concerts. It also leads her to a colossal scientific invention that could be either a contraption devised by a deranged mind or a machine that will change the very fabric of reality.
After rewriting America’s past with his two previous novels, Hernan Diaz now gives us a glimpse into the future. Ply questions the place of technology in the American experiment with a plot that grabs both heart and mind. It is a novel of ideas built from a story of people. Combining Dickensian odyssey, family drama, and scientific thriller, Ply poignantly charts the tenuous boundaries of selfhood and the distance that inevitably stands between us and those we love.
This book will be available for purchase at the event.
About This Event
Harvard Book Store welcomes Hernan Diaz—Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Trust, one of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the Century—for a discussion of his new novel, Ply. He will be joined in conversation by Jessica Shattuck—New York Times bestselling author of the novel The Women in the Castle, winner of the 2017 New England Book Award for Fiction.
Ticketing
There are two ticket options for this event. Following the presentation, the author will personalize books (first names only).
Book-Included Tickets: Includes admission for one and one hardcover copy of Ply, pre-signed by the author.
Admission-Only Tickets: Includes admission for one.
Note: Books bundled with tickets may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand. Ticket holders who purchased a book-included ticket and are unable to attend the event will be able to pick up their book at Harvard Book Store up to 30 days following the event. This offer expires after 30 days. Please note we cannot guarantee signed copies will be available to ticket holders who do not attend the event.
Order Signed Books
Unable to attend a Harvard Book Store author event? You can still pre-order a signed book by one of our visiting authors. While we can't guarantee fulfillment of a signed book pre-order, our authors are almost always able to sign extra books to fulfill such orders. Learn more about ordering signed event books.
Contact Info
General Info
(617) 661-1515
info@harvard.com
Media Inquiries
mediainquiries@harvard.com
Accessibility Inquiries
access@harvard.com
Featured Authors
Hernan Diaz
Hernan Diaz is the Pulitzer Prize–winning and New York Times bestselling author of Trust, one of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the Century. His previous novel, In the Distance, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has received the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Kirkus Prize, a Whiting Award, and a fellowship from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center. His work has been translated into thirty-seven languages.
Jessica Shattuck
Jessica Shattuck is the author of the novels The Women in the Castle (a New York Times Bestseller, winner of the 2017 New England Book Award for Fiction, and #1 Indie Next Pick), Last House (long listed for the 2024 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award), Perfect Life, and The Hazards of Good Breeding (a New York Times Notable Book and Boston Globe Editor’s Choice Book of 2003, and finalist for the Pen/ Winship Award). Her fiction has appeared in Open City, Guernica, and The New Yorker among other publications. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Mother Jones, Lithub, and The Boston Globe. Shattuck lives in Brookline, MA.
About the Venue
First Parish Church
Presented by Harvard Book Store
1446 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA 02138
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