The Half Life Book Tour: Read-Along & Author Talk with Rachel Beanland

Buxton Books is excited to welcome Rachel Beanland to the bookstore as part of her book tour for The Half Life. Join members of the Buxton Books staff and fellow event attendees as we read the book leading up to the event for a more in-depth discussion! Tickets available now. 

EVENT TIMELINE:

• The Half Life Pub Day: Tuesday, July 14 (pick up your book here or any date after!)
• Read-along begins: Sunday, July 19
• Event date: Thursday, August 27

On Thursday, August 27, Rachel Beanland returns to Buxton Books with her new title The Half Life, and we are hosting a read-along to celebrate! 

Purchase the VIP Read-Along & Author Talk: Book-Included ticket and (fictionally) travel with us from Charleston- where the book opens- to a remote Italian island as we read The Half Life together. Over the five weeks leading up to Rachel Beanland's stop at Buxton Books, we'll be adding read-along participants to our Close Friends Instagram story for reading check-ins, discussion questions, and ways to connect with fellow readers. On the night of the event, we'll meet in person with each other and with Rachel, for an in-depth discussion of the book. We will reach out via email with more information on July 14 (The Half Life's Publication Date). 

Can't particpate in the read-along but still want to come meet Rachel? Though we'd love for everyone to read with us, we know some of you may already have TBRs that are maxed out. We still encourage you to join us for the event! Rachel is fantastic and will give a spoiler-free author talk about her writing process and inspiration for the book for anyone who isn't ready to delve into the plot points. Please choose the General Admission (Book-Included) ticket or the General Admission (No Book) ticket if you will be attending the event but sitting out the read-along. 

No matter what experience you choose, we can't wait to see you on the evening of August 27 for a lovely night of discussion about this new title and a chance to spend time with an author we admire! 

Please note: Tickets to this event are non-refundable. Attendees whose ticket purchase includes a book are welcome to pick it up at the bookstore starting the day following the event and up to two weeks after or have it shipped (at an additional cost). 

About Rachel Beanland: 

Rachel Beanland is the author of The House Is on Fire and Florence Adler Swims Forever, which won the National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction. She is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and earned her MFA in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University. She lives with her family in Richmond, Virginia.

About The Half Life: 

From the author of Florence Adler Swims Forever and The House Is on Fire, a novel set on a remote Italian island about a navy wife’s reckoning with power, love, and the price of staying silent in the Atomic Age.

“A captivating, whip-smart novel about love, loyalty, and a woman torn between two lives. I utterly adored it.” —Clare Leslie Hall, New York Times bestselling author of Broken Country

When twenty-three-year-old Eileen O’Malley meets charismatic naval officer Paul Archer in a Charleston department store, she doesn’t expect to fall so hard, so fast. But Paul is funny and ambitious, and soon, Eileen’s got a ring on her finger and is following him to the tiny, sun-drenched Mediterranean island of La Maddalena, where Paul will be heading up Radiological Controls aboard a submarine tender.

In La Maddalena, Eileen joins a makeshift community of navy wives who are hell-bent on making the island feel a little more like home. But for Eileen, whose brother died in Vietnam, home is a loaded word, and as she settles into life on the island—taking Italian lessons and learning to make culurgiones—she begins to love the place for all the ways it is not like where she comes from.

Still, it doesn’t take long for Eileen to be confronted with the complexities of being an American abroad. The decision to send nuclear-powered subs into the La Maddalena Archipelago was a contentious one, and the U.S. government is doing whatever it can to ensure that the island—not to mention all of Italy—doesn’t go communist in the next election.

When Italian activists and scientists begin to sound the alarm about possible nuclear contamination in the water, the island erupts in a series of protests, made worse by the ongoing mishaps of the U.S. Navy. Soon, Eileen’s marriage falters and her loyalties begin to shift as she is drawn into a web of secrets—and to a local journalist who forces her to imagine a life beyond the one she’s been handed.

Atmospheric, sexy, and quietly defiant, The Half Life is a story of love, complicity, and awakening—of one woman forced to choose between loyalty to her husband and country and to the Italian locals who show her the high cost of American exceptionalism.