At the Edge of the Haight

Katherine Seligman’s new book At the Edge of the Haight
will be available from Algonquin Books, January 19, 2021.
Available for order here

A celebration of the PEN/Bellwether prize with Barbara Kingsolver
Center for Fiction, January 21, 4:30 PM Pacific Time
https://centerforfiction.org/event/a-celebration-of-the-pen-bellwether-prize-with-katherine-seligman-and-barbara-kingsolver/

In conversation with Vanessa Hua
Green Apple Books, January 25, 6:00 PM Pacific Time
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/event/virtual-event-katherine-seligman-and-vanessa-hua

More Events:

January 28 – Columbus, OH
Gramercy Books / In Conversation with Michael Wilkos
Local Event Partners: United Way of Central Ohio, Community Shelter Board, and Lutheran Social Services

February 3 – Boston, MA
Brookline Booksmith / In Conversation with Lisa Ko
Local Event Partner: Bridge Over Troubled Waters

February 4 – Seattle, WA
Third Place Books

February 9 – San Diego, CA
Warwick’s

February 11 – Denver, CO
Tattered Cover
Local Event Partner: The Gathering Place

February 16 – Los Angeles, CA
Vroman’s / In Conversation with Hillary Jordan
Local Event Partner: Friends in Deed

Early Praise:

“What a read this is, right from its startling opening scene. But even more than plot, it’s the richly layered details that drive home a lightning bolt of empathy. To read At the Edge of the Haight is to live inside the everyday terror and longings of a world that most of us manage not to see, even if we walk past it on sidewalks every day. At a time when more Americans than ever find themselves at the edge of homelessness, this book couldn’t be more timely.”
—Barbara Kingsolver

“A terrific novel, half murder-mystery, half a tale of growing up. The heroine and her friends are unique in my reading experience—homeless young people living in Golden Gate Park, with their own community and their own rules—and their story is suspenseful and touching throughout.”
—Scott Turow

“At the Edge of the Haight brims with empathy for the overlooked and the underserved. It’s a deep, dark, and necessary look into lives often discarded and disregarded—an urgent and important read and a startling debut.”
— Ivy Pochoda, author of These Women

“This book pulled me deep into a world I knew little about, bringing the struggles of its young, homeless inhabitants—the kind of people we avoid eye contact with on the street—to vivid, poignant life. The novel demands that you take a close look. If you knew, could you still ignore, fear or condemn them? And knowing, how can you ever forget?”
—Hillary Jordan, author of Mudbound

“Through careful observation, author Seligman seeks to humanize a community that is often ignored and misunderstood…Winner of the 2019 PEN/Bellweather Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, At the Edge of the Haight is a thoughtful look at modern homelessness.”
—Booklist

“Unsparing but…an intense, personal drama about wayward lives positioned between redemption and disaster. Putting a human face on those who live at society’s margins, At the Edge of the Haight is an intimate novel whose young characters struggle for survival and a little bit of dignity.
—Foreword Reviews

“Seligman is to be commended for an insightful portrayal of homelessness. She’s at her best when showing just how tenuous life on the streets can be… heartfelt…brave…storytelling.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Earnest … Seligman has a strong sense of the city and of the challenges faced by the homeless … Seligman’s portrayal of life as a homeless young person is immersive.”
—Publisher’s Weekly

“I love Maddy Donaldo. I can’t wait for you to meet her. Not since Carson McCullers’s Frankie Addams have I seen a character so defined by her deep dualism—an electric desire to be both invisible and seen, free and bonded.”
—Mesha Maren, author of Sugar Run

“Subtle yet compelling . . . written in delicate, understated prose, At the Edge of the Haight not only offers unexpected insights into the daily life of those who are young and on the streets, but into the confusion of tenderness, hurt, fear and fierceness that tumble within the minds of many. An enlightening read for anyone of any age.”
—Helen Benedict, author of Wolf Season

“I loved this novel: its tenderness, its toughness, its brilliantly-named protagonist Maddy—these days, what thoughtful person isn’t mad? Maddy is a Holden Caulfield for our times, smart, streetwise, a survivor who is not jaded. Seligman’s vivid portrait leads us to understand San Francisco’s street people not as “the other” but as extensions of our friends, our families, our neighbors, ourselves. If there is hope for our species, it begins there.”
—Fenton Johnson, author of At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life

“At the Edge of the Haight is a novel of rare grace and compassion that opens a window onto a world to which we often keep ourselves closed. With a keen sense for setting and state of mind, Kathrine Seligman takes us on a journey into the hidden spaces of America, where the friction created between the need to be seen and to disappear, to remember and to forget sets little fires that help us see better, help us stay warm.”
—C. Morgan Babst, author of The Floating World

Press:

NPR / Weekend Edition with Scott Simon:
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/16/957254342/trying-to-survive-on-the-margins-in-at-the-edge-of-the-haight
“Katherine Seligman’s new novel makes alive and visible the lives of people we often walk past, sometimes as quickly as we can.”

San Francisco Chronicle / Feature:
https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/books/katherine-seligman-aims-to-humanize-san-franciscos-street-kids-in-debut-novel-at-the-edge-of-the-haight
“The book is a compassionate and probing character study of the type of street kids Seligman knows people tend to overlook or even scorn when they see them begging on the sidewalk.”

Rumpus Exclusive: Cover Reveal for At the Edge of the Haight:
https://therumpus.net/2020/08/rumpus-exclusive-cover-reveal-for-at-the-edge-of-the-haight/

SF Weekly:
https://www.sfweekly.com/culture/katherine-seligman-at-the-edge-of-the-haight-empathy/

Interview in Los Angeles Review of Books:
https://www.lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-world-most-of-us-dont-see-a-conversation-with-katherine-seligman

San Francisco Chronicle:
https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/books/two-very-different-tales-of-the-haight-more-than-50-years-apart

A conversation with Barbara Kingsolver at the Center for Fiction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M37YA99L-So