Join senior correspondent at Vanity Fair, Delia Cai in conversation with Wiz Wharton, to celebrate the publication of her debut novel Central Places.

Audrey Zhou left Hickory Grove, the tiny central Illinois town where she grew up, as soon as high school ended, and she never looked back. She moved to New York and became the person she always wanted to be, complete with a high-paying, high-pressure job and a seemingly faultless fiancée. But if she and Manhattan-bred Ben are to build a life together, Audrey can no longer hide him, or the person she’s become, from those she left behind.

Get cosy to spend the night in with Delia and Wiz as they discuss the charm of Hickory Grove and the bustling streets of New York in this heartfelt novel about self-discovery, homecoming and the choices that shape our lives. 

“Delia Cai fully renders the uneasy marriage between past and present. Central Places is honest about the strangeness and revelation of returning home.” Raven Leilani

“A sensitive, sharp-eyed, slyly funny story of venturing back into the foreign country that is your past – and discovering that you can never really shake the places and people that shaped you.” Celeste Ng