Read your work. You always read your work. Never thinking of the future. Prove yourself. You are the book you make. Take your chances win or loser.
This silly lyrical reference is a roundabout way of saying that the exuberant Russ Marshalek has organized yet another fantastic installment of his infamous reading series, “Just Working on My Novel.” It’s set to go down on February 15, 2010, whereby new and established writers read unpublished and/or new novels. The latest episode will center around love letters, breakup stories, sad sack notes, and other harrowing emotional indictments befitting the day after Valentine’s Day.
The sexier-than-you Jami Attenberg be hosting this event, and I can think of few people better suited to the exigencies. In addition, due to the unexpected reception of Hate Mail Dramatic Reading Project, it appears that I’ve been enlisted to read one of the proffered pieces in a wildly theatrical manner that may involve the breaking of glass. And as an added incentive for curiosity seekers, I’ll also be performing an excerpt from my sprawling novel-in-progress, Humanity Unlimited, which will involve a pregnant attorney, an eccentric restaurant, and a dissolving relationship and contains the striking sentence, “Perhaps maternal canvassing was a form of social suicide.” This section has not been read before and it may perplex some audience members unfamiliar with recent developments in upscale cuisine.
But more importantly, there are the readers! Sign-up spots before the event are limited. But you can email Russ directly to secure your spot.
It all goes down on Monday, February 15, 2010, starting at 7:00 PM, at The Tank, located at 354 West 45th Street (near 9th Avenue).
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (