Welcome to the Summer Author Series at the Ocean House featuring Avery Carpenter Forrey for the new book Social Engagement
Tickets to this event are $36 (plus taxes and service charge) and can be purchased by clicking the link below. Each ticket will include a copy of the event book.
Purchase Tickets Here!
About the Book
"Unputdownable and razor-sharp. ... Forrey's is a fresh new voice in fiction that effuses wit and heart in equal measure; I joyfully devoured her stunning debut." -- Carola Lovering, author of Tell Me Lies
A bitingly sharp and darkly humorous debut novel exploring millennial wedding culture, class, and relationships, all filtered through the ever-present lens of social media.
In an opulent honeymoon suite in Watch Hill, Rhode Island's most desirable wedding venue, 29-year-old Callie Holt is spending her wedding night lying in a bathtub shoveling down a pizza; her expensive white dress now splattered with sauce and her groom passed out in the next room. With her seven-hour-old marriage already imploded, Callie turns to the place of record - her phone - sifting through the photographic evidence of the past year to pinpoint where it all went wrong.
Could it have started when Callie moved in with her best friend, Virginia Murphy, in the swanky Upper East Side pied-à-terre for which Virginia's parents foot the bill? Or when Virginia's irritatingly attractive cousin (and Callie's secret ex) Ollie returned from pursuing his photography career abroad, throwing a wrench in Callie's relationship with her kind (if a bit dim) finance bro boyfriend, Whit? Or was the true turning point when Callie stumbled upon a dark secret lurking in the Murphys' well-heeled past, one with the potential to upend everything Callie knows about the people she considers her second family?
Over the course of one wedding-filled year, all these long-simmering secrets and resentments will come bubbling to the surface, leading to a reckoning that will strip Callie and everyone around her down to their most gruesomely real, filter-free selves. As Callie attends wedding after wedding, getting tagged in post after post, she begins to contemplate--and actualize through her own art--the gulf between the true selves of the people around her and the selves they present on their screens.
About the Author
Avery Carpenter Forrey is a writer, editor, and creative consultant. She was a founding team member and Managing Editor at theSkimm. Her work has been published in The Cut, GQ, and elsewhere.
“A witty and addictive behind-the-scenes account of today’s highly curated and hashtagged wedding world. Clear your weekend and prepare to fall in love with this delicious debut.” —Lauren Weisberger, bestselling author of The Devil Wears Prada and Where the Grass is Green and the Girls are Pretty