In Sister Zero, a woman who never wanted children suddenly becomes a mother to her nine-year-old nephew after her sister commits suicide at age 34. Fifteen years later, the boy will also kill himself and in almost exactly the same manner.

Register now for the online book launch of Robert Cording’s In the Unwalled City. Robert Cording will read from the book, engage in a discussion of the book with Slant editor Gregory Wolfe, and answer your questions. September 13, 2022, 8 pm Eastern, 7 pm Central, 5 pm Pacific. Via Zoom.

In the Unwalled City takes its title from Epicurus, who wrote: “Against other things it is possible to obtain security, but when it comes to death, we human beings all live in an unwalled city.” This affecting book—which weaves prose memoir with poetry—explores that feeling of being open to attack—in this case the pain of grief after Robert Cording’s thirty-one-year-old son Daniel died.

In the fall of 2014, educators Eric and Rixa Freeze moved with their young family to Old Nice, a medieval town-within-a-city on the famed Côte d’Azur. They’d bought a 700-square-foot dive, an apartment in need of renovation just a couple blocks from the Mediterranean.

They were a family with a plan: to live differently.