Tune in to hear Dawn Winter discuss her uproarious debut Sedating Elaine in conversation with Rufi Thorpe! This is VIRTUAL EVENT please register in advance here

An exuberant dark comedy about love, grief, sex, guilt, and one woman’s harebrained scheme to tranquilize her voraciously amorous girlfriend for a few days so that she might pay off her drug dealer, make soup, and finally get some peace and quiet.

Frances was not looking for a relationship when she met Elaine in a bar. She was, in fact, looking to drown her sorrows in a pint or twelve and nurse a broken heart, shattered by the gorgeous, electric Adrienne. But somehow (it involved a steady stream of beer and weed, as things often did with Frances) Elaine ended up in Frances’s bed and never left. Now, faced with mounting pressure from her drug dealer, Dom (and his goon, Betty), Frances comes up with a terrible idea: She asks Elaine to move in with her for real. Unfortunately, this seemingly romantic overture makes Elaine even more sex-crazed and maniacal with love. Frances fears she may never escape the relationship, so, given no choice, she makes the obvious decision: She will sedate Elaine.

A story as enthusiastically madcap and funny as it is smart and emotionally surprising, Sedating Elaine introduces a roster of unforgettable characters and an indelible, wildly exciting new voice in fiction.

About the Author:

DAWN WINTER lives in Essex, north of London, and studied English literature at the University of Roehampton. She has held a variety of jobs in prisons, hospices, kitchens, and factories. Sedating Elaine is her first novel.

About the Moderator:

RUFI THORPE received her MFA from the University of Virginia in 2009. Her first novel, The Girls from Corona del Mar, was long-listed for the 2014 International Dylan Thomas Prize and for the 2014 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. A California native, she currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and sons.