Book Club’s August read is ‘The Wedding People’ by Alison Espach
Book Club
Espach joined Charter Books store manager Amy Van Keuren for a live streamed discussion.
For Boston.com Book Club’s August pick, we are reading a “propulsive and uncommonly wise novel” by acclaimed author and Rhode Islander Alison Espach.
Espach previous novels include “The Adults,” a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a Barnes & Noble Discover pick, and “Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance,” which was named a best book of 2022 by the Chicago Tribune and NPR.
Her most recent novel “The Wedding People” tells the story of Phoebe Stone, a woman who has hit rock bottom and arrives at a high-end hotel in Newport, Rhode Island to make the ultimate decision about her life. Upon arrival, she realizes she has become an accidental wedding crasher, and develops an unlikely and fast friendship with the bride that helps her start anew.
Espach joined Amy Van Keuren, store manager at Charter Books in Newport, Rhode Island on Aug. 28 for a live streamed discussion.
Read on to learn more about the book, author Alison Espach, our discussion moderator and Charter Books store manager Amy Van Keuren, and what critics are saying about “The Wedding People.”
Click the following links to jump directly to the following information: The book | The author | The bookseller | Critics say | Watch the discussion
Buy “The Wedding People” by author Alison Espach from Charter Books.
What is “The Wedding People” about?
It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels – not a bag in sight, alone. She’s immediately mistaken by everyone for one of the wedding guests, but she’s there for another reason entirely.
Phoebe is at the hotel because she’s dreamed of coming to Newport for years – she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself.
Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe’s plan – which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.
From the absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s “The Wedding People” is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined – and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.
“The Wedding People” has been preemptively acquired by TriStar Pictures, an American film studio and production company. Nicole Holofcener is set to adapt the screenplay, Espach confirmed in an interview with the American Booksellers Association.
Who is author Alison Espach?
Alison Espach grew up in Trumbull, Conn., where she lived for most of her life. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Providence College and her master’s degree in creative writing from Washington University in St. Louis.
Her writing has appeared in McSweeney’s, Five Chapters, Glamour, Salon, The Daily Beast, Writer’s Digest, and other journals.
She is a professor of creative writing at Providence College in Rhode Island.
About Charter Books’ store manager
Amy Van Keuren has been the store manager at Charter Books in Newport, Rhode Island since the bookstore opened in 2021. She grew up on the “mainland” in North Kingstown, located two bridges over from Newport – a fact that comes as a shock to Rhode Islanders, she said.
“By Rhode Island standards, that’s absolutely nuts,” she said with a laugh.
As a child of avid readers, Van Keuren was encouraged to love reading from an early age, and she took to it naturally, she said. Bookstores, too, were a constant in her life since childhood; she said she has fond memories of visiting tiny bookstores during trips to see her grandparents in Maine. And libraries were (and continue to be) equally important in getting “books into the hands of young, hungry readers.” She decided to move into bookselling in 2018 and has never looked back since.
“It felt like coming home, in terms of finding an avenue in my career that was totally natural and allowed me to do the best job in the world, which is helping people find books that they love,” she said.
Van Keuren previously worked at Savoy Bookshop and Cafe in Westerly, Rhode Island before joining Charter Books in 2021.
Charter Books was founded in 2020 by Steve Iwanski of Tiverton, Connecticut and opened to the public in the spring of 2021. It was named for the Rhode Island Royal Charter of 1663, a document authored primarily by Newporter John Clarke. It was one of the first documents to acknowledge the rights of indigenous people in their own land and guarantee settlers freedom of religion.
“We’re named in honor of that freedom of expression and belief. It’s really foundational to the city of Newport and to so many bookstores,” Van Keuren said.
In the community spirit of the Charter, the bookstore partners with many local nonprofit organizations for its programming. The bookstore has partnered with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, the Boys and Girls Club of Newport, the Newport Pride Center, as well as most of the city’s historical societies, Van Keuren said.
Customers can find a broad selection of books and a variety of non-book offerings in-store, such as puzzles, toys for kids, and an extensive vinyl collection to celebrate the city’s rich musical culture. Store owner Steve Iwanski helps to curate the selection, Van Keuren said, drawing from his love of music and time spent living in the Mississippi Delta.
The store prides itself on its curation of books, to the acclaim of readers and customers, she added.
“We do try to offer a diverse range of books, but we’ve gotten remarks several times that our selection is really well curated, or that you can tell that we all really love books. And we take great pride in that,” she said.
Van Keuren is partial to the sci-fi and fantasy genres, but said she absolutely loved Espach novel “The Wedding People”: “I can’t stop talking about it.”
Espach and Van Keuren will come together on Aug. 28 at 6 p.m. for a live streamed discussion about the book.
What critics are saying about the book
“A collision of diametrically opposed life events and general drama, the likes of which we haven’t seen since Maggie Shipstead’s ‘Seating Arrangements’ … Espach has an eye for the full gamut of emotions that go hand in hand with lifelong commitment, from humor to self-involvement to pathos.” – Elisabeth Egan, The New York Times Book Review
“Espach’s wit and warmth deliver a gratifying story about how people who have given up might find a reason to start caring again.” – Becky Meloan, The Washington Post
“Deeply satisfying … A story of what it means to lift oneself out of one life and into another through acts of individual will and fellowship with others … Espach is now three for three on delivering funny, emotionally moving explorations of the difficulties people have in being themselves.”– John Warner, Chicago Tribune
“‘The Wedding’ People is so much more than a funny story (though it is very funny). Espach has penned a keenly observed novel about depression, love, the ways women make themselves small, and how one woman got over it. Fully realized and completely memorable.” – Susan Maguire, Booklist
Watch the virtual discussion
Author Alison Espach and bookseller moderator Amy Van Keuren discussed “The Wedding People” on Aug. 28 at 6 p.m. during a live virtual discussion.
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