Please join us for our Maine Women Write Book Club on Thursday evening, March 15th @7pm when we will discuss Susan Conley's book, Foremost Good Fortune. We are pleased to say that Susan will join us for the discussion.

When Susan Conley, her husband, and their two young sons leave their house in Maine for a two-year stint in a high-rise apartment in Beijing, they are prepared to weather the inevitable onslaught of culture shock. But the challenges of living and mothering in an utterly foreign country become even more complicated when Susan learns she has cancer. After undergoing treatment in Boston, she returns to Beijing, again as a foreigner—but this time, it’s her own body in which she feels like a stranger.

Set against the eternally fascinating backdrop of modern China and full of insight into the trickiest questions of motherhood, this poignant memoir is a celebration of family and a candid exploration of mortality and belonging.

"You hear about riveting prose, and this is it. . . . This is a beautiful book about China and cancer and how to be an authentic, courageous human being.” —The Washington Post

 “Luminous. . . . Conley's writing is at once spare and strong, and her description of having to present an unflappable front to her children while being hit "with a rolling wave of homesickness" pulls the reader into her world like a close friend.” —Publishers Weekly