“Once upon a time, I disappeared.” So begins Karen Palmer’s harrowing and redemptive memoir, She’s Under Here.

In 1989, shortly after her second marriage, Palmer and her new husband quit their jobs without notice. They pulled her two young daughters out of school and buckled them into the rear seat of a used car purchased with cash. The trunk was packed with clothing and toys, pillows and blankets, four place settings, one pot, one pan, and a sack that contained every penny they had. Living with the fear of Palmer’s dangerous ex-husband had become untenable: This was DIY witness protection.

In this searingly honest and heart-wrenching account, Palmer examines why she ended up trapped, how she escaped, and the ongoing perils of life constructed around a false identity. She ruthlessly explores the lines between desire and fear, victim and perpetrator, captivity and freedom, and exposes myriad aspects of what it means to make difficult choices as a woman, when none of the options are good. She’s Under Here is a haunting meditation on themes of disappearance, betrayal, and private violence, and it is utterly unforgettable.

Karen Palmer is a Pushcart Prize winner and has received grants from the NEA and Colorado Council on the Arts. She’s Under Here grew out of her award-winning essay “The Reader Is the Protagonist,” first published in Virginia Quarterly Review and selected by Leslie Jamison for inclusion in Best American Essays 2017. More recently her short story “Birds of Paradise”  won the 2022 Emily Clark Balch Prize for Fiction. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, The Kenyon Review, Arts & Letters, and Kalliope, among others. She lives in Los Angeles.

Erin Palmer is a lawyer, advocate, and community builder dedicated to public and community service. She works at the national nonprofit Pro Bono Institute, where she supports pro bono legal efforts that expand access to justice. Erin is deeply involved in her local community, having served for six years as a neighborhood-level elected official and currently serving on the board of her local Main Street and as Chair of the Fair Budget Coalition’s executive committee.

Before working at Pro Bono Institute, Erin ran a highly competitive campaign for DC Council Chair, earning attention for her detailed DC Council Accountability Plan and her commitment to transparent, people-powered governance. She has also served as an ethics lawyer for the federal Judiciary, practiced as a litigation associate focused on pro bono efforts including asylum, education access, and youth justice reform, supervised a law school human rights clinic, and clerked for the DC Court of Appeals.

If you’d like to purchase this title online and still support People’s Book, follow the link below:

https://bookshop.org/a/88548/9781643757544

This is an in-person event. Seated capacity at People’s Book is 50 patrons. Standing room is an option. All events are first-come, first-served seating. Accessible seating is always available.