#BookmarkThis: ‘A Place for Us’
Chat with author Mirza, Sarah Jessica Parker.
You’ll want to #BookmarkThis. On June 13, join USA TODAY for a Facebook Live chat with Sarah Jessica Parker and author Fatima Farheen Mirza about Mirza’s new novel, A Place for Us.
#BookmarkThis is a series of live video chats with best-selling authors, and fans can submit questions during the chat and in advance.
Parker, the star of the HBO series Divorce and a book lover, is editorial director of the new publishing imprint SJP for Hogarth (a division of Penguin Random House), and A Place for Us (on sale June 12) is her first acquisition.
Mirza’s debut novel tells the story of an Indian Muslim family in California. It begins on the eve of eldest daughter Hadia’s wedding and unravels the past to explain why her brother, Amar, has been estranged from the family.
The book delves into the generational conflict between tradition and modernity; Hadia is marrying for love, not because someone was chosen for her.
Parker calls A Place for Us (the title comes from a West Side Story lyric) “heartrending and timely” and says the novel allows the reader to “better understand what it means to reconcile one’s love of family and culture with a desire to find one’s one path, and one’s own faith.” Parker promises: “I guarantee you will be different when you close the book.”
Kirkus Reviews praised Mirza’s debut as “ardent and powerful” and says it “ex- plores the spiritual lives of its characters with sympathy and passion.” (The novel is also one of USA TODAY’s 10 hot reads for summer.)
Mirza, 27, was born and raised in the Bay Area and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Parker is one of the celebrity book lovers featured in the PBS series The Great American Read.
On the first episode, she explained why she’s a huge fan of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, one of 100 finalists for “America’s most beloved novel.”
How to join the chat
Join the Facebook Live chat June 13 at 10 a.m. ET/7 a.m. PT on the USA TODAY Life Facebook page. To learn more or to submit questions, visit SJPchat.usatoday.com.