Gary Shteyngart at powerHouse Arena

1. A packed house at powerHouse Arena was excited for the reading to begin. 2. Author Gary Shteyngart signed many a book Tuesday night.

Gary Shteyngart’s book tour for Super Sad True Love Story came to a triumphant finish Tuesday night at powerHouse Arena in DUMBO, Brooklyn. “This is the end of 340 days of touring that have taken me to such diverse countries as Canada…and America,” Shteyngart announced to the packed bookstore.

Throughout the evening, Shteyngart shared his own views on modern culture and technology. When asked if he was concerned that some of the futuristic details of the novel would become outdated, he said that has already begun. “I created Onionskin jeans as a joke. Two months after the book came out, models in Paris were wearing completely transparent jeans on the runway.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Second Annual Moby Awards

1. The crowd gathered at powerHouse Arena for the 2011 Moby Awards. 2. Man about town Brendan Sullivan, a.k.a. DJ Vh1

Typical literary award event: nominated authors read, host lavishes nominated authors with praise, winner/s announced, grand after party, general lauding of winner/s and losers alike, cash and bio-addition prize. Last Thursday’s event: no one read, the host was relieved to find that many of the winners were not present, after nothing, general lauding of a plush toy horse named Bashful, and plastic spray painted whales for prizes. Welcome to the second annual Moby Awards.

Orchestrated and bestowed by Melville House, the Moby Awards are dedicated to the best and worst book trailers of the year. Book trailers: aptly named, often less aptly conceived. An entire awards ceremony devoted to them was really a welcome opportunity to laugh at this mad, mad literary world in which we live.

Read the rest of this entry »

Judson Merrill Queries an Agent

My literary career is young but it’s never too early to get a hand into the sock puppet of posterity. For the benefit of scholars and fans alike, I will use this space on The Outlet, on a semi-regular basis, to release a selection of my correspondence and other papers. Enjoy. (Universities interested in acquiring the complete Judson Merrill archive should contact me through my web site.)

To Whom it May Concern,

My literary noir speculative romance novel Breath of Bread is about a man caught between the career he loves, the woman he lusts after, the job he left behind, the family he cannot abandon, another woman whom he has conflicting feelings for, the debts that plague him, the professional competitors who will do anything to stop him (and also happen to be members of the family he cannot abandon), a third woman he had this one thing with one time, and the government that has saddled him with a tax code too onerous for his small business.

Breath of Bread creates a Jonathan Franzen-like world where, as in Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story, a man is driven by professional and romantic relationships to confront his own hellish reality. And, like Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came to the End, the comedy of business is black indeed. Also, if you like Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, it’s sort of like that. Crossed with Nora Ephron’s hit movie You’ve Got Mail, which isn’t a book but is pretty literary since it’s about writing letters.

Read the rest of this entry »