H&H Books is thrilled to host Marisa (Mac) Crane to celebrate their sophomore novel, A Sharp Endless Need. They'll be in conversation with Philly-based poet Kayleb Rae Candrilli. An audience Q&A and book signing will follow their reading and discussion. This event is free, but registration on Eventbrite is highly encouraged.

About the Book: Star point guard Mack Morris’s senior year of high school begins with twin cataclysms: the death of her father and the arrival of transfer student Liv Cooper. On the court, Mack and Liv discover an exhilarating, game-winning chemistry; off the court, they fall into an equally intoxicating more-than-friendship that is out of bounds for their small Pennsylvania town in 2004, and especially, for Liv’s conservative mother. As Mack’s desire and grief collide with drugs, sex, and the looming college signing deadline, she is forced to reckon with the disconnects between her past and her future—and fight for the life she wants for herself, whether or not Liv will be on the court beside her.

Written with the lush longing of Andre Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name and the obsessive attention of Jean Kyoung Frazier’s Pizza Girl, and with all the romance and feeling of the celebrated 2000 movie "Love & Basketball," Crane’s sophomore novel is a voice-driven, literary treatment of the big feelings of first love, intimacy, heartbreak, grief, and, of course, sports.

About the Authors:

Marisa Crane is a former college basketball player and the author of I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, Indie Next pick, and winner of a LAMBDA Literary Award. They have received fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, American Short Fiction, and Vermont Studio Center, and their short work has appeared in Literary Hub, The Sun, TriQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, Joyland, and elsewhere. Originally from Allentown, PA, they currently live in San Diego with their family.

Kayleb Rae Candrilli is the recipient of a Whiting Award, a PEW fellowship, and of a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts. They are the author of Winter of Worship, Water I Won’t Touch, All the Gay Saints, and What Runs Over. Candrilli lives in Philadelphia with their partner.

Copies of A Sharp Endless Need (Dial Press) and Candrilli's poetry collection Winter of Worship (Copper Canyon Press) are available in-store at H&H Books and on our ecommerce site.

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