Date: October 17th 2008

Hi everyone-

First, a reminder. John Giorno is going to be launching his new book Subduing Demons in America TONIGHT at the New Museum. And apologies that we forgot to tell you the time of the event in the last email: this is happening at 7:30pm and is part of a larger exhibit featuring the work of artist Elizabeth Peyton. More info at the New Museum's website: http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/400/live_forever_elizabeth_peyton#related_panel


And now, about two other events coming up next week - featuring Matthew Sharpe, author of The Sleeping Father and Jamestown, Paul Beatty, and Cristy C. Road, author and artist of the new illustrated novel Bad Habits: A Love Story.

Check out the books here:

Bad Habits: http://softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-59376-215-1

Jamestown: http://softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-933368-60-8

The Sleeping Father: http://softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-932360-00-X

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The Pacific Standard Fiction Series Rides Again!
featuring Paul Beatty and Matthew Sharpe

Tuesday, October 21st, 7:00 p.m.
82 Fourth Avenue, Brooklyn, New York (betw. St. Marks and Bergen)
hosted by Garth Risk Hallberg

Books available on-site!
Drink specials to be chosen by dartboard!
"Best New Literary Event of 2008" (New York Magazine)...now with stylish new curtains!

Paul Beatty, author of SLUMBERLAND, has been hailed by The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times as one of the best writers of his generation. His previous novels are TUFF ("Unforgettable" - The Boston Globe) and THE WHITE-BOY SHUFFLE ("Laugh-out-loud funny and weep-in-silence sad" - The Nation). A former Grand Poetry Slam Champion of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Beatty is also the author of the poetry collections JOKER, JOKER, DEUCE and BIG BANK TAKE LITTLE BANK, and is the editor of HOKUM, an anthology of African-American humor.

"Furiously written… [SLUMBERLAND] is another bravura performance from the searingly talented Paul Beatty. A no-holds-barred comedic romp that crushes through the Fulda Gap of Black/White, East/West relationships like an M1 tank." -Junot Diaz


Matthew Sharpe's third novel, JAMESTOWN, was one of Publisher's Weekly's Best Books of 2007 - "a work of hectic brilliance and immense sadness," according to Salon.com. His previous novel, THE SLEEPING FATHER, was a Today Show Book Club pick, and has been translated into nine languages. Mr. Sharpe's previous books are the novel NOTHING IS TERRIBLE and the collection STORIES FROM THE TUBE. His stories and essays have appeared in Harper's, McSweeney's, and Bomb, among others.

"[A]n absurd hybrid of Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Walt Disney's Pocahontas... JAMESTOWN is an anguished lament for the whole bloody history of Western conquest, the stupidity and cruelty of invaders then and now... Jamestown is packed with marvelous material, moving and funny and deeply provocative." - Washington Post Book World


Host Garth Risk Hallberg is the author of A FIELD GUIDE TO THE NORTH AMERICAN FAMILY and is a 2008 NYFA fellow in fiction. The Pacific Standard Fiction Series aims to showcase the intense and varied literary energies of Brooklyn by pairing writers from the borough and beyond. We offer fine stories and appealing beverages in a civilized setting. For more information, please visit www.pacificstandardbrooklyn.com.

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Happy Ending Reading Series
Featuring Cristy C. Road, author of Bad Habits: A Love Story


Wed, Oct 22, 7pm – 10pm
Happy Ending Bar (map)

Cristy Road, 25-year=old graphic artist and author of Bad Habits: A Love Story (Soft Skull) will be reading with Deb Olin Unferth from McSweeney's.

Michelle Tea calls Cristy's work “A party on the page, or a riot, or a revolution.”

About the Book:
In Bad Habits, Road takes us on an uncensored and largely autobiographical tour of an underground world, one full of wild characters and personal revolutions. We journey through New York City’s dive bars, we share drugs in dark bathrooms, and we spend long nights in strange beds. Road’s street psychopharmacology results in experiences that are both revelatory and tragic. In her circle, drugs are cheap, ubiquitous, and sometimes feel like the only way out. Writing in a tradition of some of the finest transgressive authors, such as Jean Genet, William S. Burroughs, and Kathy Acker, Road takes us deep inside the damaged soul and psyche of her young protagonist with language as violent as the street and sex as raw as the language. Somewhere along this hyperreal tour, our heroine learns to leave her bad habits behind and emerge stronger and more independent, clean and open to love. She’s still punk, but she’s punk by her own rules—and she finds that life can be about much more tha
n mere survival.

About the Event:
Have you ever been to Happy Ending Bar? You should! It's really not hard to get to: HAPPY ENDING BAR 302 Broome St Between Forsyth and Eldridge J,M,Z,F to Delancey B,D to Grand St See? You probably already know where that is. You've probably already even seen the bar, and not noticed it is, in fact, a bar. You probably thought it was some sort of work-out facility, like "CRUNCH!" This is a trick that has been played on you: over the bar's entrance hangs a pink awning with the words "health club" on it. Of course! But now you know! Join the New York Elite of "People In The Know" and show up for Cristy Road's reading!

SHOW STARTS AT 8pm ; DOORS OPEN AT 7pm
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Thanks for reading!

Best,
Soft Skull


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