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A reading by Rachel Heng, The Ruby's July Writer in Residence

Rachel Heng, author of the debut novel, Suicide Club (Henry Holt, 2018), is The Ruby's July Writer in Residence. The Ruby's Writer in Residence program seeks to support the best writers writing, and to bring writers from outside the Bay Area to The Ruby to read. Writers in residence stay in our upstairs writers loft.

About Suicide Club

In Rachel Heng's debut set in near future New York City―where lives last three hundred years and the pursuit of immortality is all-consuming―Lea must choose between her estranged father and her chance to live forever.

Lea Kirino is a “Lifer,” which means that a roll of the genetic dice has given her the potential to live forever―if she does everything right. And Lea is an overachiever. She’s a successful trader on the New York exchange―where instead of stocks, human organs are now bought and sold―she has a beautiful apartment, and a fiancé who rivals her in genetic perfection. And with the right balance of HealthTech™, rigorous juicing, and low-impact exercise, she might never die.

But Lea’s perfect life is turned upside down when she spots her estranged father on a crowded sidewalk. His return marks the beginning of her downfall as she is drawn into his mysterious world of the Suicide Club, a network of powerful individuals and rebels who reject society’s pursuit of immortality, and instead choose to live―and die―on their own terms. In this future world, death is not only taboo; it’s also highly illegal. Soon Lea is forced to choose between a sanitized immortal existence and a short, bittersweet time with a man she has never really known, but who is the only family she has left in the world.

About Rachel Heng

Rachel Heng is a Singaporean novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, Suicide Club, will be published by Sceptre, Hachette (UK) and Henry Holt, Macmillan (US) in July 2018 (more details here). It will also be translated and published in 7 other territories: Sweden, Portugal, Italy, Czech Republic, Taiwan, China and Poland.

Rachel's fiction has received a Pushcart Prize Special Mention, Prairie Schooner's Jane Geske Award, and has been recommended by The Huffington Post. She was recently featured by The Independent (UK) in the article 'The Emerging Authors To Look Out For in 2018' and interviewed by The Straits Times (Singapore). Rachel's short stories have been published in The OffingPrairie Schooner, The Adroit Journalthe minnesota review and elsewhere.

Rachel was born and raised in Singapore. After graduating from Columbia University with a BA in Comparative Literature & Society, she spent several years working in private equity in London. She now lives in Austin, where she is pursuing her MFA in Fiction and Screenwriting at UT Austin's Michener Center for Writers with the support of the James A. Michener Fellowship. She is currently also an assistant editor for the O Henry Prize Anthology.

https://www.rachelhengqp.com/