PETALUMA --

Copperfield’s Books welcomes friends and local authors Eirinie Carson and Kailea Frederick to Petaluma for a conversation about Eirinie's new book – The Dead are Gods. 

The discussion will be followed by a Q&A and book signing.

This event is free and open to the public. 

From an exciting new literary voice: a memoir that explores grief, Blackness, and recovery after the death of a dear friend

After an unexpected phone call on an early morning in 2018, writer and model Eirinie Carson learned of her best friend Larissa’s death. In the wake of her shock, Eirinie attempts to make sense of the events leading up to Larissa’s death and uncovers startling secrets about her life in the process.

Eirinie met the glamorous Larissa in London when she was just 15, navigating the predominantly white, alternative music scene of the early aughts. The two became best friends and roommates, united by their love of music and books, consistently broke but always able to find someone to buy them a drink at the party. They worked as models in an unfriendly fashion industry, and Larissa’s irresistible blend of charisma and mystery gained them access to the secret bohemian enclaves of London, Paris, New York and Los Angeles. Beautiful, popular, and often unknowable even to her closest friends, Larissa helped Eirinie forge her identity and sense of self during a pivotal time in her life.

THE DEAD ARE GODS is Eirinie’s striking, intimate, and profoundly moving depiction of life after a sudden loss. Amid navigating moments of intense grief, Eirinie is overwhelmed by her love for Larissa. She finds power in pulling moments of joy from the depths of her emotion. Eirinie’s portrayal of what love feels like after death bursts from the page alongside a timely, honest, and personal exploration of Black love and Black life.

Perhaps, Eirinie proposes, “The only way out is through.”

Author: Eirinie Carson is a Black British writer, born to a Jamaican father and Scottish mother and raised in South East London. Her work is published in the Sonora Review and is a frequent contributor to Mother magazine. A member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto, Eirinie writes about motherhood, grief, and relationships. Eirinie lives in Northern California with her musician husband and their one dog and two daughters. The Dead are Gods is her first book.

Kailea Frederick, Community Publisher, is a mother of Tahltan, Kaska and Black American lineage. She has dedicated the last ten years to working at the intersections of climate justice, resilience thinking and independent publishing, previously serving as NDN Collective’s Climate Justice Organizer, Editor for Loam Magazine and as a Climate Commissioner for the City of Petaluma. Her diverse publications on climate change, disaster preparedness and parenting during collapse have been utilized as curriculum across schools in the United States and Canada, and her 2021 publication with NDN Collective, Required Reading: Climate Justice, Adaptation and Investing in Indigenous Power was recommended reading by the White House.