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From Stephen Elliott
Ben Marcus will read from his new novel The Flame Alphabet at City Lights Bookstore. Tonight, 7 p.m.
“The Flame Alphabet invites the question: What is left of civilization when we lose the ability to communicate with those we love?
...moreSF Weekly interviews Ben Marcus about his new novel The Flame Alphabet, which we reviewed last week.
“I’m drawn to the ways that family members can speak to each other. It’s safer within a family, in general, to say the worst things, and get away with it.
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Ben Marcus’ fourth novel, The Flame Alphabet, uses well-worn myths as a way to expose and explore the pressing questions that we often forget thrum at the heart of our most common traditions and rituals.
This week in New York Ben Marcus and Deb Olin Unferth read, John Lydon (formerly Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) performs with PiL, MobyLives presents book trailer awards, One Story holds a Debutante Ball, Jewcy presents readings by Rachel Shukert, Sam Apple and Jami Attenberg, Paper Monument Magazine (sister-mag to n+1) throws a party for Issue 3, and Marc Ribot provides live musical accompaniment to Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid.
This week in New York Ben Marcus and Rivka Galchen at Harper’s Magazine’s The Family Table, Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach talk, Mary Gaitskill, John Turturro, and Eric Bogosian at PEN benefit, Frederick Wiseman’s documentary La Danse, Jeff Lewis and the Wowz!
September 13, 2009
10:37am – Walking by Book Stands
Tao Lin T-shirts were dangling on hangers at the Melville House booth at the Brooklyn Book Festival. The T-shirts said “Tao Lin: 1983- ????” Across from Melville House was the Ugly Duckling booth.
...moreReasons to attend the 2009 Brooklyn Book Festival: 1) it’s one of the most hip, smart and diverse American literary events, 2) because Ben Marcus, Sarah Manguso, Thurston Moore, Heidi Julavits and Tao Lin are just some of the stars and emerging writers who will be talking/reading, 3) panels will talk about DFW , rappers and upward mobility, among a lot of other great things read and discussed, and 4) because it’s free (though for some events you need to secure tickets in advance).
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Conjunctions: 52, Betwixt the Between, its Spring 2009 issue, has just been released. According to the Editors’ Note, the issue explores what happens when the “borderlands of the normal and absurd…are breached.” This breach is bare in Secret Breathing Techniques, by Ben Marcus.
In his introduction to the Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, Ben Marcus writes that the best contemporary fiction synthesizes the heartfelt and the innovative.