Jean Rhys said that "reading makes immigrants of us all," that "it takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere." Now more than ever, it's vital—and heartening—to read, and read widely. We'll read thrilling, mind-blowing, intriguing, heartbreaking, comic, strange, and/or provocative books by women of color—and, monthly, we'll gather to talk about what we've read! When possible, we'll also have the writer join us.
Our first book of 2023 is MY NEMESIS by Charmaine Craig, which was released February 7, 2023. We will have a few copies to give away to the first Rubies who register. For this gathering, it's not necessary to read the book in advance, but we encourage you to do so if you can!
Author Charmaine Craig will join us in person to do a short reading from her novel, followed by a moderated discussion of the book. Join us early for happy hour!
About MY NEMESIS
From the acclaimed author of Miss Burma, longlisted for the National Book Award and the Women’s Prize for Fiction, comes an immersive and searing story of two women, their marriages, and the rivalry between them.
Tessa is a successful writer who develops a friendship, first by correspondence and then in person, with Charlie, a ruggedly handsome philosopher and scholar based in Los Angeles. Sparks fly as they exchange ideas about Camus and masculine desire, and their intellectual connection promises more—but there are obstacles to this burgeoning relationship.
While Tessa’s husband Milton enjoys Charlie’s company on his visits to the East Coast, Charlie’s wife Wah is a different case, and she proves to be both adversary and conundrum to Tessa. Wah’s traditional femininity and subservience to her husband strike Tessa as weaknesses, and she scoffs at the sacrifices Wah makes as adoptive mother to a Burmese girl, Htet, once homeless on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. But Wah has a kind of power too, especially over Charlie, and the conflict between the two women leads to a martini-fueled declaration by Tessa that Wah is “an insult to womankind.” As Tessa is forced to deal with the consequences of her outburst and considers how much she is limited by her own perceptions, she wonders if Wah is really as weak as she has seemed, or if she might have a different kind of strength altogether.
Compassionate and thought-provoking, My Nemesis is a brilliant story of seduction, envy, and the ways we publicly define and privately deceive ourselves today.
About Charmaine Craig
Charmaine Craig is the author of the novels Miss Burma, longlisted for the National Book Award and the Women’s Prize for Fiction, The Good Men, and My Nemesis. Formerly an actor, she teaches in the program in fiction at UC Riverside and lives in Los Angeles.