An Evening with Margaux Eliot: Honeymoon Stage
A Recap of An Evening with Margaux Eliot (Julia Fine): Honeymoon Stage
The Chicago Literary Salon — November 4, 2025
The lights glowed warm against the exposed brick at Nic + Juniors as guests arrived, cocktails in hand, for the debut of The Chicago Literary Salon. The evening began, fittingly, with The Honeymoon Spritz — a bright, celebratory mix of cachaça, lime, and prosecco — a sparkling nod to the evening’s featured novel, Honeymoon Stage by Margaux Eliot, the pen name of award-winning author Julia Fine.
As the first plates appeared — Brazilian cheese sticks with arrabbiata sauce and the most cloud-like pão de queijo — the conversation began to hum. What started as introductions quickly turned into thoughtful exchanges about pop culture, identity, and the ways women have been asked to perform versions of themselves for decades.
Coming up…
Julia, radiant and open, shared what drew her to the world of early-2000s reality TV:
“I wanted to interrogate the way we, as a culture, treated young women in the public eye — Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Monica Lewinsky — women whose stories were told for them.”
That theme pulsed throughout the night. Guests nodded, laughed, and swapped memories of the Newlyweds era, of grocery-store tabloids and cable reruns that shaped our ideas of celebrity and selfhood. “Reality TV taught us how to perform certain identities,” Julia said. “Once you know someone’s watching, you start performing — even if the camera is your phone.”
Dinner unfolded family-style — crisp kohlrabi Caesar salad, tender piri piri roasted chicken draped in pepper relish, and velvety rigatoni vodka crowned with stracciatella and crispy garlic. Between bites, the conversation moved seamlessly from the text to the table, guests pulling conversation cards designed around the evening’s themes.
What does authenticity mean when everyone is performing?
Who decides what stories about women are told — and who gets to tell them?
If you could go back to your early 2000s self, what would you say about self-image, ambition, or belonging?
Some guests leaned in to debate, others let the questions linger as they sipped and savored. The mood felt unhurried, intimate — equal parts dinner party and salon.
By the time the chocolate chip cookies arrived, still warm and perfectly soft, the table had transformed into something rare: a gathering where literature, memory, and laughter intertwined. Julia’s reflection on her creative shift as Margaux Eliot felt like the perfect closing note:
“It’s a genre pivot. My agent suggested a pen name so readers wouldn’t expect another dark fairy-tale novel. Margaux Eliot let me step into a new creative identity.”
It was, in every way, a night about reinvention — for the author, for the stories we tell, and for the way Chicago comes together around the written word.
As guests lingered over the last sips of prosecco, one question from the conversation cards seemed to echo in the air: What does it mean to live more authentically this week?
The Chicago Literary Salon began as a dream of connection — of slowing down, sharing a meal, and letting stories spark something lasting. On this November night, that dream flickered to life.
Photography by Erika Bauer. Books purchased from Three Avenues Bookshop. Hosted at Nic + Juniors.
Event Flyer for the Chicago Literary Salon with Margaux Eliot November 4, 2025
November 4, 2025 @ 6pm
Step into the dazzling chaos of early 2000s celebrity culture with debut author Margaux Eliot, as she joins us for an intimate literary salon at Nic + Juniors to discuss her buzzworthy novel, Honeymoon Stage.
This sharply observed and irresistibly witty story follows Cassidy Baum, a behind-the-scenes production assistant whose own wedding becomes the subject of a high-profile reality show—a spin-off of the infamous series she once helped produce. With fame, betrayal, and romance colliding in spectacular fashion, Honeymoon Stage invites readers to consider how much of our lives we’re willing to perform—and what’s left when the cameras stop rolling.
Your evening includes:
A signed hardcover copy of Honeymoon Stage from Three Avenues Bookshop
A thoughtfully curated dinner experience featuring a welcome cocktail, passed hors d'oeuvres, seasonal salad, handmade pasta, entrée, and a sweet finish
A conversation with the author, exploring the story’s inspirations, themes, and the drama behind the drama
Thoughtfully designed conversation prompts to spark connection and reflection—no prior reading required
Whether you're a lover of pop culture nostalgia or simply crave a smart, fresh story with heart, join us for a night where the drama stays on the page—but the fun is very, very real.
Seating is extremely limited. Reserve your seat today.
About Honeymoon Stage:
Step into the dazzling chaos of early 2000s celebrity culture with Honeymoon Stage—a sharply observed and irresistibly witty novel that asks how much of our lives we’re willing to perform, and what’s left when the cameras stop rolling.
On the eve of her wedding, Cassidy Baum can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right. Maybe it’s cold feet—or maybe it’s the fact that her vows will be exchanged under the glare of production lights, her every move captured for a reality show eerily similar to the one she once worked on.
Cassidy knows the drill—she’s a seasoned production assistant, comfortable behind the camera. But her fiancé, a former child star turned musician, makes irresistible TV, and their nuptials are just the spin-off Honeymoon Stage has been waiting for.
Five years ago, the show imploded in a haze of betrayal and drama that Cassidy has never fully understood. Now, with her own love story on the line, she must untangle the rumors, lies, and secrets of the past before her “happily ever after” becomes the season finale no one saw coming.
Brimming with wit, romance, and razor-sharp observations about fame and reinvention, Honeymoon Stage is a delicious page-turner for anyone who remembers the first era of celebreality—and wonders what happens after the cameras stop.
About Margaux Eliot/ Julia Fine:
Julia Fine—also writing as Margaux Eliot—crafts novels that blur the boundaries between the familiar and the uncanny, the intimate and the spectacular. She is the author of Maddalena and the Dark, The Upstairs House (winner of the Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction), and What Should Be Wild (shortlisted for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior First Novel). As Margaux Eliot, she turns her sharp eye toward the dazzling world of early-aughts celebrity culture in Honeymoon Stage, forthcoming in Fall 2025. Fine teaches writing in Chicago, where she lives with her family.