BELFAST — On consecutive upcoming Sunday afternoons, Left Bank Books in downtown Belfast invites the public to meet two novelists, both of whom are celebrating the recent release of their books: Meghan Gillis, author of Lungfish, on Sunday, October 15, and Nick Fuller Googins, author of The Great Transition, on Sunday, October 22. Both events are free and begin at 2 p.m. at the shop. 

Set on an uninhabited island off the Maine coast, Lungfish tells the story of a young family — Tuck, her husband, Paul, and their daughter — in crisis. They’ve been forced by circumstances to squat on the island where they scramble to stay one step ahead of the law. Their difficult situation worsens when Tuck discovers that Paul is addicted to opioids. Scraping a meager existence from the sea, Tuck grapples with the lies she’s been told to arrive at the truth of who she is.

Lungfish, which is Gillis’s debut novel, has received widespread critical acclaim since its publication last year, according to Left Bank, in a news release. It was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a finalist for the Maine Literary Award for Fiction, longlisted for The Center for Fiction 2022 First Novel Prize, and a LitHub Most Anticipated Book of the Year. 

Gillis received her MFA from Bennington Writing Seminar and has been a resident at the Hewnoaks Artist Colony. In other lives, she’s been a journalist, bookstore owner, outreach librarian, and a pandemic-era nursing unit secretary. Her work has appeared in many literary magazines as well as in North by Northeast: New Short Fiction by Writers from Maine and New England. Gillis lives in Portland with her artist husband Adam Stockman and their daughter.

“Fans of Station Eleven and The Ministry for the Future will be captivated by The Great Transition, Googins’s debut novel that unfolds against the backdrop of our near future,” said Left Bank.

Emi Vargas, whose parents helped save the world, is devastated when her mother Kristina disappears after being named as a possible suspect in the assassination of a dozen climate criminals. Emi and her father travel from their home in Greenland to New York City, now a lightly populated storm-surge outpost built from the ruins of the former metropolis, to look for Kristina.

“Alternating between Emi’s search for her mother and a meticulously rendered, heart-stopping account of her parents’ experiences fighting climate change thirty years earlier, The Great Transition brilliantly shows how our actions today determine our near future,” said the release.

Googins’s short fiction and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Men’s Health, The Sun, The Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. He lives in Portland where he works as an elementary school teacher. He is a member of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, as well as the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the United States.

Reservations are strongly recommended, according to Left Bank. For reservations, call 207-338-9009 or email info@leftbankbookshop.com. Ample free parking is available in front of the shop and in an adjacent public parking lot.