FFR/Princeton BTGALA, Harvard GLC, and Columbia Pride Present... Readings from Recently Released LGBT Books! Wayne Koestenbaum and Aaron Hamburger

Come join us again at People! We'll be converging in the loft upstairs at People for another installation of our series of readings by out authors.

Wayne Koestenbaum, "Moira Orfei in Aigues-Mortes"
Five years of breakdown separate pianist Theo Mangrove's last recital in Europe from his planned comeback in Aigues-Mortes, 'the town of dead water.' At home in tiny East Kill, NY, Theo begins jotting down elements of his days in 25 notebooks, purchased all at once and addressed to his mother, a better-known pianist in perpetual hiding from her unbalanced family during a never-ending 'tour' of Brazil. Theo's sister lives in her bedroom; and his wife, aside from servicing two of Theo's twenty daily erections, will have nothing to do with him. The other eighteen--taken care of by male hustlers, random strangers in back rooms, and naked piano students--contribute to Theo's sense of dissolution as his 'comeback' approaches. Overcome by the belief that Moira Orfei, queen of the Italian circus, must perform with him, Theo begins to write to her; in his notebooks, he pens what may or may not be her cryptic replies. In a fugue of notes and troubling memories, Theo prepares for Aigues-Mortes, struggling with Moira's guidance toward one final, full celebration of 'the partial, the flawed, the almost, the not quite.'
Wayne Koestenbaum has published five books of nonfiction prose: Andy Warhol; Cleavage: Essays on Sex, Stars, and Aesthetics; Jackie Under My Skin: Interpreting an Icon; The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire (a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist); and Double Talk: The Erotics of Male Literary Collaboration. His books of poetry are Model Homes, The Milk of Inquiry, Rhapsodies of Repeat Offender, and Ode to Anna Moffo and Other Poems. Receipient of a Whiting Writer's Award, member of the Pen American Center Board of Trustees, he is currently a Professor of English at City University of New York's Graduate Center, as well as a Visiting Professor in the painting department of the Yale School of Art. He received his B.A. from Harvard, his M.A. from Johns Hopkins, and his Ph.D. from Princeton. He is a member of Harvard GLC and FFR/Princeton BTGALA.

Aaron Hamburger, "The View from Stalin's Head"
The View from Stalin's Head is a collection of ten darkly comic stories about Americans and Europeans in post-Cold War Prague--a magnet not only for artists and writers, but also for American tourists and post-college deadbeats; a place both glorified and mocked by its history, its citizens both resentful of and nostalgic for their Communist past. Against this backdrop, Aaron Hamburger conjures an arresting array of characters: a lesbian, self-appointed rabbi who runs a synagogue for non-Jews; an artist once branded as a criminal by the Communist regime who hires a teenage boy to boss him around; and a fiery American would-be socialist trying to rouse the oppressed masses while feeling the tug of her comfortable Stateside upbringing. European and American, Jewish and gentile, straight and gay, the people in these stories find their ethnic, religious, political, and sexual labels surprisingly less rigid than they'd imagined.
Aaron Hamburger's short story collection THE VIEW FROM STALIN'S HEAD was published by Random House in March of 2004. His next book, a novel titled FAITH FOR BEGINNERS, is forthcoming in fall 2005. His writing has appeared in Nerve, The Village Voice, Poets and Writers, Publishers Weekly, Salt Hill, and Jewish Education News and has won awards from The Atlantic Monthly, the Edward Albee Foundation, and CAJE. He currently teaches creative writing at Columbia University. Aaron is a member of Columbia Pride.

The readings will begin promptly at 7:00 pm. There will be an opportunity for question and answers after the reading. There will be some time before and after the event for drinks and mingling, and the authors will be on hand after the reading to autograph their books.

We thank 192 Books for supporting this event and making the authors' books available for sale! 192 Books was opened on May 22, 2003, deep in the heart of Chelsea.

A refreshing change from the chain book stores, 192 Books is a general-interest bookstore featuring key works of literature and history, art and criticism, the social and natural sciences, travel and children's books, and more. Their selection includes a wide range of recent titles and past best-sellers, as well as selected rare and out of print books. For more information, visit their website at http://www.192books.com/

People is a beautiful bar that brings the SoHo feel to the lower East Side (directions follow). It's a marvelous place to have a drink and mix and mingle. There is also a wonderful restaurant called Dish right next door for folks that want to get a bite afterwards. For more information, visit their website at http://www.peoplelounge.com/

Like all of our events, all are welcome, but we especially welcome LGBT alumni from the ivy league and seven sisters schools, as well as our friends from Stanford, NYU, UVA, Duke, Williams, and Georgetown University. Feel free to bring your friends, boyfriends and girlfriends! We also welcome suggestions of authors for our next reading. We are particularly looking for books that have just been published or are about to be published, but that is not a fixed requirement. We particularly encourage you to suggest women authors.

Directions
It's easy to get to People! It's just a block and a half below the intersection of First Avenue and Houston.
Subway From uptown or midtown, take the F or V train to the 2nd Avenue stop. Exit out the right hand stairs on the first Avenue end of the station. South of Houston, First Avenue becomes Allen Street. People is just a short block and a half south of Houston on the west side of Allen, between Stanton and Rivington.
From down town, take the J/M/Z up town. Get off at Essex. Walk west three short blocks to Allen, then north a block and a half.
Bus From uptown or midtown, take the M15 bus south on 2nd Avenue. The bus will turn on Houston and continue south on Allen Street. Get off at Houston and Allen and walk south a short block and a half. From subway stations on the west side, take the M21 bus east on Houston. Get off at 1st Avenue/Allen Street.

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This document was last modified on November 1, 2004.