We’re excited to share the beautiful cover for The Poet’s House by National Book Award finalist Jean Thompson, coming July 12, 2022. Fill out the form below to enter for a chance to win one of ten advance reader’s copies. Read more here about this smart and witty story about a young woman who discovers the insular world of writers, and pre-order The Poet’s House today!

Carla is in her twenties, working for a landscaper, lacking confidence, still unsure what direction her life will take. Viridian is a lauded and lovely aging poet whose reputation has been defined by her infamous affair with a famous male poet, Mathias, many years earlier. When Carla is hired to work at Viridian’s house, she is perplexed by this community of writers: their tendency to recite lines in conversation, the stories of their many liaisons, their endless wine-soaked nights. And still she becomes enamored with Viridian and her whole circle, and especially with the power of words, the “ache and hunger that can both be awakened and soothed by a poem,” a hunger that Carla feels sharply at this stagnating moment in her young life. At the same time, she sees how even Viridian has had to compromise so much to take her place in the world of letters. And as Viridian’s standing begins to fade, a number of people angle to gain possession of Mathias’s cycle of poems written about Viridian, a cycle he famously burned as he read them. Yet long after Mathias’ s death, one copy may still rest with Viridian. If so, why won’t she release it?

A wry meditation on art as both transformative and on the ways in which it can be leveraged as commerce, as well as a perceptive examination of the female artist, Jean Thompson’s novel is at once delightfully funny and wise, and will resonate with readers who loved Lily King’s Writers & Lovers, Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion, and Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise.

“Jean Thompson makes hanging out with poets look like even more of a good time than one suspects, in real life, it might be. The Poet’s House is terrific company: funny, poignant, and full of realistically quirky and original characters. A thoroughly enjoyable read.” —Julie Schumacher, author of The Shakespeare Requirement

Pre-order The Poet’s House today.