Wednesday, Oct 16, 7:30pm – Come meet author Mira T. Lee! Books will be available for purchase.
Two sisters: Miranda, the older, responsible one, always her younger sister’s protector; Lucia, the vibrant, headstrong, unconventional one, whose impulses are huge and, often, life changing. When their mother dies and Lucia starts to hear voices, it’s Miranda who must fight for the help her sister needs — even as Lucia refuses to be defined by any doctor’s diagnosis. Determined, impetuous, she plows ahead, marrying a big-hearted Israeli only to leave him, suddenly, to have a baby with a young Latino immigrant. She will move with her new family to Ecuador, but the bitter constant remains: she cannot escape her own mental illness. Lucia lives life on a grand scale, until inevitably, she crashes to earth. And then Miranda must decide, again, whether or not to step in — but this time, Lucia may not want to be saved. The bonds of sisterly devotion stretch across oceans, but what does it take to break them?
Told from multiple perspectives, Everything Here Is Beautiful is, at its core, a heart-wrenching family drama about relationships and tough choices — how much we’re willing to sacrifice for the ones we love, and when it’s time to let go and save ourselves.
“Everything Here Is Beautiful is a tender but unflinching portrayal of the bond between two sisters–one that’s frayed by mental illness and stretched across continents, yet still endures. With ventriloquistic skill, Mira T. Lee explores the heartache of loving someone deeply troubled and the unbearable tightrope-walk between holding on and letting go.” — Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You
Everything Here Is Beautiful was an Amazon Top 20 Best Literature/Fiction of 2018 and one of O, The Oprah Magazine’s 15 Favorite Books of 2018.
About Mira T. Lee
Mira T. Lee’s debut novel, Everything Here is Beautiful, was selected as a Top 10 Debut by the American Booksellers Association, and named a Best Fiction title of 2018 by Amazon, O Magazine, Real Simple, and the Goodreads Readers Choice Awards. Her stories and essays have appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Tin House, Real Simple, the Southern Review, Missouri Review, and Harvard Review, among others, and have twice received special mention for the Pushcart Prize. She has also been the recipient of an Artist’s Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
In 2017, Mira used her Facebook page, “Everything Here is Beautiful,” to curate 365 days’ worth of beautiful, wondrous, and amazing things, one post for each day of the year. She continues to add to this collection — it might be good news, a noteworthy story, a 3-minute video, or a particularly moving 60-minute podcast; it could be a photograph, a painting, a news article, a book, or book cover, a piece of music, an object, even a snippet of overheard conversation.
In her previous lives, Mira has also been known as a graphic designer, a pop-country drummer, a salsa dancing fanatic, and a biology graduate student. Mira is an alum of Stanford University, and currently lives in Cambridge, MA.