When I read the advance copy of What Becomes Us, I asked Micah Perks if I could (please) organize her Los Angeles book launch as part of readings. I did this for two main reasons.
One: Micah is one of my writing mentors. Of course I want to celebrate her in Los Angeles, the city I love. She is the professor and co-director of the writing program at UC Santa Cruz and since she lives in Santa Cruz, Micah is rarely in Los Angeles. I’d love for you all to come out and celebrate her and her book because you are part of the reason I think so fondly about this city.
Two: her new novel What Becomes Us is funny and well-written and dark and fascinating. I’m not alone in being captivated by this story. Many have praised her book and here are two of them:
“Micah Perks is one of the most radiantly original writers around. What Becomes Us, exhilarating and terrifying, is a novel I love for its wild beauty, its offbeat inventiveness, it’s effervescent language, and the artfulness with which it has been shaped. This is a brilliant novel.”
- Elizabeth McKenzie, author of The Portable Veblen, longlisted for The National Book Award for Fiction.
"Micah Perks' book has everything a reader could hope for -- her language is lively, her characters appealing. Set in a storied landscape, with themes of independence and community. Romance! History! Food! Plus a tale to tell and some surprising people to tell it. There is real magic here. Micah magic! Completely original, completely delightful."
- Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
MICAH PERKS is the author of a novel, We Are Gathered Here, a memoir, Pagan Time, and a long personal essay, Alone In The Woods: Cheryl Strayed, My Daughter and Me. Her short stories and essays have won five Pushcart Prize nominations and appeared in Epoch, Zyzzyva, Tin House, The Toast, OZY and The Rumpus, amongst many journals and anthologies. Excerpts of What Becomes Us won a National Endowment for The Arts grant and The New Guard Machigonne 2014 Fiction Prize. She received her BA and MFA from Cornell University and now lives with her family in Santa Cruz. http://www.micahperks.com/