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Acclaimed, best-selling author Bonnie Garmus will discuss her new novel, Peck & Peck, on Thursday, Nov. 19, at Vanderbilt University. Garmus will be in conversation with author Ann Patchett beginning at 6:30 p.m. in Langford Auditorium, 2209 Garland Ave. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m.
The event is hosted by the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries and Dialogue Vanderbilt in collaboration with Parnassus Books.
Tickets for the talk are $33.00 each (plus Eventbrite fees) and include one general admission seat and a pre-signed copy of Peck & Peck, to be published on Oct. 13 by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. There will be no signing line for book personalizations or an author photo line at this event.
About the book
The No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of global sensation Lessons in Chemistry returns with an irresistible and tender literary novel, set in the publishing world of 1980s New York City, about a young man whose life turns upside down when he is hired by the most prestigious, secretive and dysfunctional poetry journal in the world: the renowned Peck & Peck.
It’s 1982, New York City. Crime is on the rise, muggings are in the streets, and Batter Gray, a recent college graduate with a skill that no one wants—an “ear” for poetry—is worried about his future. While all his friends have real jobs, he’s folding T-shirts at the Gap. As for love? No. Not unless you count “Sallie Mae,” the student loan tyrant. He hears from Sallie all the time.
But when Batter gets a dream job at Peck & Peck, the most prestigious poetry quarterly in the world, his life moves into the literary fast lane. Soon Batter is knee deep in the secret war between the two editors in chief, the famous Peck brothers—twins and enemies—as well as being privy to the private affairs of their 39 editors, whose professed mission is the same: Find originality. Reward creativity. Burn the rest.
And by burn, they mean incinerate. Because at Peck & Peck, “good” isn’t good enough, “interesting” doesn’t cut it, plagiarists aren’t tolerated, and parolees run the mailroom. Still want to submit your poem? Go with God.
Welcome to another dazzling and unforgettable novel from Garmus. If you loved Lessons in Chemistry, you’ll love Peck & Peck.
About the author
Garmus is a coffee-dependent American novelist. Her debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry, was a Good Morning America Book Club Pick and a Goodreads Choice Best Book of the Year. It spent nearly two years on the New York Times bestseller list and was named by Times readers as one of the top 100 books of the 21st century. Translated into more than 40 languages, Lessons in Chemistry was honored with 16 international literary awards and made into an Apple TV limited series. Peck & Peck is her second novel.
About the moderator
Patchett is the author of novels—most recently the No. 1 New York Times bestselling Whistler—as well as works of nonfiction and children’s books. Her novel The Dutch House was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She has been the recipient of numerous honors, including the PEN/Faulkner Award, the National Humanities Medal, the 2026 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, the 2026 PEN/Audible Literary Service Award in recognition of her humanistic voice as a novelist and her dedication to independent bookselling, and, most recently, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation’s Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award for “a writer whose body of work reflects the prize’s mission of fostering peace, social justice and global understanding.” Patchett is also the owner of Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, and a prominent spokesperson for independent booksellers.