Boy from the north country
Date
Location
Sponsors
Admission
RSVP required
FREE | Coffee House and Salmagundi club members
About the Event
Join author and Salmagundi Club member Sam Sussman in conversation with author Julian Tepper for a special evening celebrating the paperback release of Boy from the North Country, a finalist for the 75th National Jewish Book Awards.
At the heart of Boy from the North Country is a question that confronts us all: How well can we ever know the people who made us? Through the story of a young man returning home to care for his dying mother, Sussman’s acclaimed debut explores family secrets, the search for identity, the burden and gift of inheritance, and the ways love can persist through grief, uncertainty, and time.
The conversation examines the novel’s central themes of memory, loss, healing, and forgiveness, as well as the profound relationship between parents and children. Sussman will discuss the stories families tell, the stories they conceal, and the role of fiction in helping us understand both. The evening also explores the creative process behind transforming deeply personal questions into a work of resonant and emotionally powerful literature.
About the Presenters
Sam Sussman is a Salmagundi member. He grew up in the Hudson Valley and graduated with a BA from Swarthmore College and an MPhil from the University of Oxford and has lived in Berlin and Jerusalem. His writing has been recognized by BAFTA and published in Harper’s Magazine. Sam has taught writing seminars in India, Chile, and England and participated in the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. He lives in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan and his native Hudson Valley
Julian Tepper is well-known to Salmagundi as the Director of the Coffee House Club. His fifth novel, “Getting Even/Letting Go (Rare Bird)” will be published in the fall of 2026. His writing has appeared in the Paris Review, Playboy, Brooklyn Rail, Zyzzyva, Daily Beast, Bomb, Tablet Magazine, the New York Review of Architecture, and elsewhere. His essay, “Locking Down with the Family You’ve Just Eviscerated in a Novel” was a “Notable Essay of 2022” in Best American Essays 2022. He was born and raised in New York City.
Hungry?
Ticketed attendees may reserve for dinner in the dining room (a normally member-exclusive benefit) via our Reservations page with the message “Sussman talk”. Reservations must be made in advance after RSVP-ing.