Myla Goldberg and Lisa Barr

In Conversation with Jessica Handler, New York Times Bestselling Author

MYLA GOLDBERG, Feast Your Eyes: A Novel

In her much-anticipated novel, New York Times bestselling author of Bee Season, Myla Goldberg, tells a compelling and original story about a photographer grappling with ambition and motherhood, a balancing act familiar to women of every generation.

Feast Your Eyes, framed as the catalogue notes from a photography show at the Museum of Modern Art, tells the life story of Lillian Preston. After discovering photography as a teenager, Lillian rejects her parents’ expectations of college and marriage and moves to New York City in 1955. When a small gallery exhibits partially nude photographs of Lillian and her daughter, Lillian is arrested, thrust into the national spotlight, and targeted with an obscenity charge. Their sudden notoriety changes the course of the mother and daughter’s lives and Lillian’s career as she continues a lifelong quest for artistic legitimacy and recognition.

LISA BARR, The Unbreakables: A Novel

It’s Sophie Bloom’s 42^nd birthday, and she’s ready for a night of celebration with Gabe, her longtime, devoted husband, and their friends. Dinner is served with a side of delicious gossip, including which North Grove residents were caught with their pants down on Ashley Madison after the secret online dating site for married and committed couples was hacked. Millions of cheaters were exposed—including Gabe.  

Humiliated, Sophie jumps into the unknown and flees to France to meet up with her teenage daughter who is studying abroad and nursing her own heartbreak. After a brief visit to Paris, Sophie heads out to the artist enclave of Saint-Paul-de-Vence. There, for the first time in a long time, Sophie acknowledges her own desires, and rediscovers her essence with painful honesty and humor, reawakening both her sensuality and ambitions as a sculptor.