Official Selection from the Ladies' Home Journal Book Club

The Astral

A novel by Kate Christensen

“An object lesson on the current realist novel…The Astral is structured as a journey—a poet’s trip through an interior and exterior landscape—and Christensen manages each step with quiet deliberation.”
—The New York Times Book Review

About the Book

In the gentrifying neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, rests a huge rose-colored apartment building called The Astral. For decades it was the happy home of the poet Harry Quirk, his wife, Luz, and their two children: Karina, now a fervent freegan, and Hector, now in the clutches of a cultish Christian community. But when Luz finds poems that ignite her long-simmering suspicions of infidelity, Harry is summarily kicked out, leaving him to reckon with the consequence of his literary, marital, and parental failures. With tremendous grace and acute perception, Kate Christensen details Harry’s floundering attempts to find his way back into Luz’s arms—and back to his better self—in a novel that is funny, bittersweet, and terrifically moving.

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Reader's Resources

The Astral Discussion Questions
(downloadable PDF)
The Reading Group Center's Tips for Book Club Discussions
Visit the Reading Group Center for more great reading group resources.
Q&A with Kate
(downloadable PDF)

Kate Christensen - The Astral preview reading

About the Author

Kate Christensen is the author of five previous novels, most recently Trouble. The Great Man won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. She has written reviews and essays for numerous publications, most recently the New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Tin House, Elle, and Open City. She lives in New York City.