The seventh chapter of the Chicago Literary Salon unfolded in a stunning new setting: The Alston, the French-inspired steakhouse located within One Chicago. Warm, elegant, and quietly glamorous, the space felt perfectly suited for an evening inspired by Nicola Harrison’s sun-drenched novel, The Island Club.
Guests arrived into The Alston’s intimate Member’s Lounge for cocktail hour, where conversations began over The Island Margarita, crafted with Inspiro Tequila, the female-founded tequila company headquartered in Chicago and longtime supporter of the Chicago Literary Salon. Against the backdrop of soft lighting and city views, the lounge quickly filled with the easy energy that has become the signature of the salon: strangers becoming acquainted over books, cocktails, and shared curiosity.
Adding another layer of magic to the evening was Poems While You Wait, whose poets created personalized poems for guests throughout cocktail hour. The topics ranged from heartfelt to hilarious—“Mother’s Day,” “Eden in Middle School,” and “Finally Unfucking My Life” among them—resulting in tiny, deeply personal keepsakes that guests carried with them for the rest of the night.
The evening then transitioned into an author conversation with Nicola Harrison centered around The Island Club, her latest historical novel set on Balboa Island in the 1950s. Nicola spoke about how setting is always the starting point for her fiction, describing her fascination with the nostalgic charm of Balboa Island: the historic ferry, saltwater taffy shops, vintage beach culture, and the island’s surprising history as a spring break destination long before Cabo or Cancun became cultural touchstones.
Throughout the discussion, themes of female identity, friendship, ambition, and reinvention emerged again and again. Nicola reflected on the tension between the polished image women present to the world and the more complicated truths that exist beneath the surface—a theme woven deeply throughout the novel’s three female protagonists. The conversation explored the emotional labor women carry, the pressure to maintain appearances, and the challenge of carving out space for oneself amid motherhood, marriage, and responsibility.
One particularly resonant thread of the evening centered on female friendship as a form of salvation. Nicola shared how moving to Manhattan Beach during the pandemic and reluctantly joining a group tennis lesson unexpectedly opened the door to a transformative community of women. That experience ultimately inspired much of the emotional landscape of The Island Club, where tennis serves not simply as a sport, but as a conduit for connection, identity, and self-discovery.
Fashion, naturally, also made its way into the conversation. Drawing from her background as a fashion journalist, Nicola spoke about researching 1950s tennis attire and the influence of trailblazing tennis player Suzanne Lenglen, whose shorter skirts and athletic freedom revolutionized women’s tennis fashion. Guests laughed over “limp noodle” tennis coaches, travel mishaps on book tour, and the surreal experience of readers bringing armfuls of past novels to events for signing.
After the Q&A, guests moved onto The Alston’s beautiful all-season terrace for dinner, where the conversation continued in the Chicago Literary Salon’s signature format: intimate, communal, and intentionally interactive. Elegantly designed Conversation Cards placed throughout the tables invited guests to dive deeper into themes inspired by the novel, including:
— Have you ever reinvented yourself in a new place or season of life?
— What role have female friendships played during pivotal moments in your life?
— Have you ever felt tension between the life you present outwardly and the one you experience privately?
— What does “choosing yourself” look like in adulthood?
As the evening unfolded, the terrace filled with animated discussion, laughter, and the unmistakable feeling of a dinner party rather than a traditional literary event.
The night concluded back inside the Member’s Lounge, where Nicola personalized and signed a copy of The Island Club for each guest. One by one, guests left carrying signed books, custom poems, and the lingering glow of an evening built around cocktails, cuisine, conversation, and the power of stories to connect strangers around a table.
Wednesday, May 6 | 6:00 PM | The Alston
Step into the sun-drenched glamour of 1956 Balboa Island with bestselling author Nicola Harrison as she joins us for a tennis-tinged, seaside escape at the Chicago Literary Salon.
In her captivating novel, The Island Club, Harrison transports us to an idyllic California enclave where life appears picture-perfect—cocktails by the water, crisp white tennis skirts, and afternoons at the newly opened Island Club. But beneath the polished surface, three women are quietly unraveling.
Milly Kinkaid has uprooted her life in hopes of saving her marriage—only to find herself lonelier than ever. Sylvia Johnson, society matriarch and co-founder of The Island Club, watches her carefully curated world begin to crumble under the weight of her husband’s dangerous secrets. And Adele Lambert, a guarded outsider with a hidden past, risks exposure to reclaim the game of tennis that once defined—and nearly destroyed—her.
As their lives collide on and off the court, an unexpected friendship forms—one that may prove more powerful than the men, secrets, and expectations that threaten to undo them.
Your evening includes:
A signed hardcover copy of The Island Club purchased from our partner bookstore, Three Avenues Bookshop
A welcome cocktail from The Alston
A lively, intimate conversation with Nicola Harrison on female identity, the cost of living a lie, motherhood and sacrifice, and the radical act of choosing oneself in the 1950s
Thoughtfully designed conversation prompts to spark reflection and connection—no prior reading required
Custom poems from Poems While You Wait. The process of Poems While You Wait is simple: give us your name, give us the two-or-three-word topic that you would like us to write a poem about (funny or sad, sexy or serious, big or small), and go enjoy the cocktail hour. Upon your return you will have a custom-made, one-of-a-kind original poem to keep for yourself or to give as a gift. Each poem is $10, all of which goes to support the literary nonprofit Rose Metal Press.
Whether you’re drawn to mid-century glamour, stories of female friendship, or novels that peel back the polished veneer of perfection, join us for an evening where tennis whites meet buried truths—and where women discover who they are when the rules of the game begin to change.
Seating is extremely limited. Reserve your place today.
About The Island Club:
1956: On idyllic Balboa Island, just off the California coast, life seems peaceful and welcoming. But when the lives of three women begin to unravel in shockingly different ways, an unlikely friendship―and the game of tennis―may be the only thing that can save them.
Milly Kinkaid's plan to fix her crumbling marriage seems to be falling apart before it even begins. She believed that moving her young family from Hollywood to Balboa Island might entice her increasingly distant husband to come home earlier after work. Instead, he's barely coming home at all.
Society matriarch Sylvia Johnson and her husband have been pillars of their community for decades, and have just recently begun a new business venture: The Island Club, a place for members to swim, play tennis and dine in style. But when she learns that he has been risking their financial security and putting their family's future in grave danger, she's not only poised to lose the club, but the entire community she holds dear.
Meanwhile, standoffish loner Adele Lambert's entire world is on the brink of being destroyed if the dark secrets of her past and her hidden identity is revealed. Twenty years ago, she ran from a shameful scandal and left behind the only thing she ever loved. Now, terrified that the anonymity she's spent decades guarding will be exposed, but desperate to stay afloat, she risks everything to return to the game that brought her to her knees all those years before.
Set against the sun-drenched beaches of Balboa Island, with its prim and proper 1950s facade, The Island Club is a story of love, loneliness and the lies we tell ourselves―and what can be gained when the truth is finally revealed.
About Nicola Harrison:
Nicola Harrison is the author of four historical novels, Montauk, The Show Girl, Hotel Laguna and The Island Club. Born and raised in England, she moved with her family to Southern California when she was in high school. She is a graduate of UCLA and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Stony Brook University. Prior to writing novels she worked as a fashion journalist in New York City, where she lived for 17 years. Now she resides in Manhattan Beach, California, with her husband, two sons and a high maintenance chihuahua named Lily. When she’s not at her laptop writing, you’ll likely find her on the tennis courts or at the beach, reading.