Jessamine Chan, bestselling author of The School for Good Mothers, will visit Denison University Sept. 17-18 to read from and discuss her award-winning debut novel.
Chan’s visit is co-sponsored by the Beck Series, the Laura C.Harris Program, and the Denison Museum. The events are free to the campus community and the public.
Chan’s novel explores the consequences of a brief lapse in judgment that lands new, young mother Frida Liu in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.
Called a “searing page-turner,” “a modern literary classic,” and an “enthralling dystopian drama that makes complex points about parenting with depth and feeling,” The School for Good Mothers examines the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us.
In a starred review, Library Journal wrote of The School for Good Mothers: “Chan’s stunning debut could not be timelier, leaving no stone unturned in its allusion to the real-life legal assaults constraining women today. Part-dystopian, part-prescient, impossible to put down and impossible to forget.”
American short story author, essayist, and critic Carmen Maria Machado, author of In The Dream House, called the work, “A terrifying novel about mass surveillance, loneliness, and the impossible measurements of motherhood — The School for Good Mothers is a timely and remarkable debut.”
As part of her visit, Chan will offer a reading, Q-and-A session, and book-signing from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Sept. 17 in the Denison Museum, as a complement to the museum’s M(Otherhood)s exhibit. The exhibit is a provocative and dynamic curation of more than a millennium of art, poetry, and film that explores the many ways mothering — by birth, by choice, by circumstance, and by community — takes form across cultures and generations.
On Sept. 18, Chan will take part in an interdisciplinary conversation, “Surveillance of the Soul,” on how her novel’s questions, critiques, and speculative elements intersect with our dystopian present. That event, from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., will be held in Burton Morgan Lecture Hall #115.
Jessamine Chan is the author of the novel, The School for Good Mothers, named a New York Times bestseller and a Read with Jenna/TODAY Show Book Club pick. The book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Carnegie Medal, and named one of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2022. The novel was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a Best of 2022 selection by TIME, Vogue, The New Yorker, NPR, WIRED, and Entertainment Weekly. The novel has been translated in over 20 languages and is set to be adapted as a TV series optioned by Jessica Chastain’s Freckle Films. A former reviews editor at Publishers Weekly, Chan holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BA from Brown University. Her short fiction, essays, interviews, and reviews have appeared in Tin House, Epoch, Bon Appetit, Elle.com, Electric Literature, and The New York Times Book Review. Her work has received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Wurlitzer Foundation, Jentel, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, the Anderson Center, VCCA, and Ragdale. She lives in Chicago with her family.
