Amy Rowland once worked in a newspaper transcription office, a job since automated. But her time listening to dictated stories and interviews left her thinking about language and inspired her debut novel, The Transcriptionist. She read from the book at Powerhouse Arena.
Porochista Khakpour released her second novel, The Last Illusion, earlier this month. The Iranian born, New York City based novelist was joined by Alexander Chee at McNally Jackson to discuss the book.
Joshua Ferris read from his latest novel To Rise Again at a Decent Hour at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn. The novel explores the life of a dentist obsessing over his online doppelgänger through the neurotic voice of the protagonist. Ferris has a knack for portraying characters in otherwise bland occupations. His debut novel, Then We Came to the End (2007) chronicles the final days of an ad agency while The Unnamed (2010) features an overworked lawyer.
Julia Fierro launched her debut novel Cutting Teeth to a full house at Brooklyn’s BookCourt bookstore. Fierro, as the founder of Sackett Street Writer’s Workshop, has influenced the lives of more than 2,000 Brooklyn writers, many of whom had crammed into the store. Her husband, Justin Feinstein introduced her.
Roxane Gay’s debut novel, An Untamed State (May 2014) has garnered widespread praise. Essays editor at The Rumpus and a publisher/editor of [PANK], Gay is a prolific author with an essay collection on feminism due in August and a memoir relating to hunger and body image in 2016. Volume 1 Brooklyn hosted Gay at Community Bookstore to discuss her new novel with The Rumpus columnist Sari Botton.
Over the last century, labor has shifted away from a manual as a dominant form towards clerical office work. Nikil Saval’s book, Cubed, traces the history of this evolution and explores the limits of the office as a place for work. He celebrated the launch of the book at Powerhouse Arena with Chad Harbach, editor of the journal n+1 and author of The Art of Fielding (2011).
Traditional war stories have long featured male protagonists by default. But modern war has meant female soldiers serving alongside their male counterparts. Brooklyn’s WORD Bookstore brought together three authors to talk about their war story books books featuring female soldiers. Cara Hoffman’s new novel, Be Safe I Love you (April 2014) explores the family life of a returning war veteran readjusting. Katey Schultz’s collection Flashes of War (2013) contains a mix of flash fiction and short stories. Helen Benedict has spent several years interviewing soldiers and victims of war resulting in a play, a non-fiction book, and a trilogy. She read from Sand Queen (2011), a novel of two opposing narratives, one an Iraqi medical student caught in a war prison and the other a soldier prison guard.
Twelve and a half years and seven thousand pages later, Akhil Sharma’s second novel, Family Life, has been released to rave reviews from places like The New York Times. George Packer, staff writer at the The New Yorker joined Sharma at the Center for Fiction to discuss the novel, a fictionalized, semi-autobiographical account of Sharma’s early life.