Elizabeth Poliner — Spinning at the Edges
Elizabeth Poliner reads from her new novel about family, community, and history in Washington DC, at Politics and Prose on Connecticut Avenue.
Why we picked this
Poliner's fiction has always been attuned to the way history infiltrates private life — this novel promises the same close attention to how family and community absorb and transmit the past.
Elizabeth Poliner reads from Spinning at the Edges, a novel praised for its ability to render the bonds of family and community with historical precision and emotional depth. The book is steeped in a specific sense of place and time, tracing how larger historical forces shape the intimate textures of domestic life — the kind of story that makes you feel the weight of what people carry across generations.
Poliner is a Washington-area writer and professor whose previous novel As Close to Us as Breathing was widely admired for its layered portrayal of a Jewish American family in the mid-twentieth century. She brings the same formal care and historical consciousness to this new work.
The event is free and open to the public at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington DC.