Join New York Times bestselling novelist Joshilyn Jackson for a live author conversation with Sameer Pandya and Kiley Reid about their new books Members Only (Pandya) and Such a Fun Age (Reid).

About the authors:

Sameer Pandya was longlisted for the PEN/Open Book Award for his story collection The Blind Writer, and is the recipient of the PEN/Civitella Fellowship. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Salon, and elsewhere. He teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  

An Arizona native, Kiley Reid is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was the recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship. Her writing has been featured or is forthcoming in the New York Times, Playboy, Ploughshares, December, New South, and Lumina, where her short story was the first-place winner in the 2017 Flash Prose Contest. Her New York Times-bestselling debut novel, Such a Fun Age, is currently in development by Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad Productions and Sight Unseen Pictures. Kiley lives in Philadelphia.

About the books:

Members Only by Sameer Pandya
First the white members of Raj Bhatt’s posh tennis club call him racist. Then his life falls apart. Along the way, he wonders: where does he, a brown man, belong in America?

Raj Bhatt is often unsure of where he belongs. Having moved to America from Bombay as a child, he knew few Indian kids. Now middle-aged, he lives mostly happily in California, with a job at a university. Still, his white wife seems to fit in better than he does at times, especially at their tennis club, a place he’s cautiously come to love.

But it’s there that, in one week, his life unravels. It begins at a meeting for potential new members: Raj thrills to find an African American couple on the list; he dreams of a more diverse club. But in an effort to connect, he makes a racist joke. The committee turns on him, no matter the years of prejudice he’s put up with. And worse still, he soon finds his job is in jeopardy after a group of students report him as a reverse racist, thanks to his alleged “anti-Western bias.”

Heartfelt, humorous, and hard-hitting, Members Only explores what membership and belonging mean, as Raj navigates the complicated space between black and white America.

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
A striking and big-hearted story from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age dives headfirst into matters of race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both. With profound empathy and piercing social commentary, debut author Kiley Reid unearths the stickiness of transactional relationships, the complicated reality of being a "grown up," and the consequences of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.

Thirty-three-year-old Alix Chamberlain is a woman confident in her ability to get what she wants, a trait she has turned into a business. The married mother of an infant and a sweetly precocious toddler, Alix recently moved her family from New York City to her Philadelphia hometown to restore sanity to their high-pressure lives. The transition hasn’t always been easy.

As an in-demand seminar speaker on women’s empowerment, Alix seems to have it all: a successful news anchor husband, adorable children, and a burgeoning business, not to mention an impressive townhouse near historic Rittenhouse Square. But Alix feels restless and misses the Big Apple’s energy and excitement, so three days a week she leaves her home and kids behind to ostensibly work on her upcoming book.

Meanwhile, Alix’s daughters are in the capable hands of twenty-five-year-old Emira Tucker, an African American babysitter who Alix tends to underestimate. Calm and attentive if a bit aimless, Emira is a Temple University alum living frugally on what she earns babysitting and working part time at the local Green Party offices. She knows she’ll need to transition into an adult job with health benefits at age twenty-six, but Emira has grown to love two-year-old Briar Chamberlain with a tenderness and protectiveness that surprises her.

So when a security guard in the neighborhood market accosts Emira and Briar with racially charged accusations, Emira takes a fierce stance. The ugly incident triggers a series of events that send shock waves through Emira’s world and the Chamberlain household. A bystander’s video plays a pivotal role in the aftermath, upending everything Emira and Alix thought they knew about themselves and each other. All the players are forced to re-examine motives, attitudes, and assumptions in ways they never imagined, while Alix blindly resolves to make it right. Alix never expected that her meddling would reveal the stickiness of transactional relationships or what it really means to make someone family.

A modern story brimming with piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age is beautifully nuanced and perfectly paced as it shines a spotlight on society’s ability—or inability—to adapt to a changing world. The result is a big-hearted page-turner full of surprising plot twists, that sparks a critical conversation about race and privilege much needed in literature now.

A Cappella Books has copies of Members Only and Such a Fun Age available for pre-order online. Shipping, curbside pick-up and local delivery options are available. Click here to purchase Members Only. Click here to purchase Such a Fun Age.

Joshilyn Jackson with Sameer Pandya & Kiley Reid