AUTHOR EVENT
What: Asale Angel-Ajani reads from and discusses “A Country You Can Leave.”
When: 5 p.m. March 4.
Where: Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles
Admission:
was so far away.”
The novel also doesn't shy away from addressing day-to-day poverty and the anxieties of living in a system that can reinforce the cycle of hardship. AngelAjani has written two nonfiction books that touch on some of the topics in the novel, “Strange Trade: The Story of Two Women Who Risked Everything in the International Drug Trade” and the upcoming “Intimate: Essays on Racial Terror.”
“This is the thing that is so profound about the Inland Empire,” Angel-Ajani said. “While you have these distinct communities that are carved out on racial lines, the thing that is a common factor is poverty and how poverty shapes a more common experience. We see that more in the Inland Empire, perhaps because people are accessing similar services in the same buildings, so you have to interact with each other, and that's where we overlap.”
Although dealing with painful realities, the novel has many funny and heartfelt moments. The most comical instances occur with Yevgenia's constant philosophical advice about men, and the different sections of the novel that begin with her sex advice about men.
“I think it's both humorous and utilitarian, and it says more about what she's trying to get Lara to do as a woman in a society that struggles to see women as in control of their own bodies,” Angel-Ajani said.
“A Country You Can Leave,” which takes its name from a Joseph Brodsky quote, is also a book about books. Yevgenia is obsessed with reading Russian authors, such as Tolstoy. She dismisses any work that isn't Russian as childish and insists that Lara read nothing else, but Lara still sneaks in some “Harry Potter” books. While Yevgenia reads to navigate reality and Lara reads to escape, Angel-Ajani hopes readers can relate and find pleasure in the reading process.
“I hope that it sparks joy and that they see my characters as companions while they read the book.”
Free