The Portable Veblen, a novel by Elizabeth McKenzie, is set in and around Palo Alto, California, amid the culture clash of new money and old (antiestablishment) values. A young couple on the brink of marriage—the charming Veblen and her fiancé, Paul, a brilliant neurologist—find their engagement in danger of collapse. Along the way they weather everything from each other’s dysfunctional families to the attentions of a seductive pharmaceutical heiress to an intimate tête-à-tête with a very charismatic squirrel.

The Portable Veblen received the silver medal for fiction in The Commonwealth Club's 86th California Book Awards and was long listed for the 2016 National Book Award for fiction. McKenzie will be present to discuss the novel and to sign books. Please join us for an entertaining and insightful evening.