Binnie Kirshenbaum
October 21 2004, 7:30 PM
Jewel Box Theatre at the Rendezvous
Binnie Kirshenbaum's latest novel,
An Almost Perfect Moment, remembers Brooklyn "on the cusp of the great age of disco" when a 15-year-old Jewish girl named Valentine— "the spitting image" of the Virgin Mary as she appeared to St. Bernadette—inexplicably becomes pregnant, while her mother, Miriam, overeats and plays mah-jongg with "The Girls." Kirshenbaum's books include
Hester Among the Ruins and
History on a Personal Note. She teaches writing at Columbia University.
Gary Shteyngart
January 13 2005, 7:30 PM
Jewel Box Theatre at the Rendezvous
Born in Leningrad, raised in Queens, Gary Shteyngart was still struggling to reconcile his Old and New World identities when he began his first novel.
The Russian Debutante's Handbook follows 25-year-old Vladimir Girshkin from New York City to Eastern Europe, immigrant to expatriate, as he stumbles through love, literary magazines, and pyramid schemes. In 2003, Shytengart won the National Jewish Book Award for fiction; his short stories and essays have appeared in
The New Yorker, Granta, GQ, and
The New York Times Magazine.
I'm Glad You Asked: An Evening of Free Advice
Hosted by Dan Savage
March 30 2005, 7:30 PM
The Big Picture
2502 1st Avenue, Seattle
In the shtetl you consulted the rebbe, the matchmaker, or your mother. The New World brought new possibilities: newspapers, radio, television, the Internet. Are redheads cursed? Will I die if I marry a woman with a dimpled chin? How do I get my parents to stop speaking Yiddish in public? From the Bintel Brief to Dear Abby to Drs. Ruth and Laura, advice mavens have used mass media to dispense commonsense wisdom and voyeuristic entertainment. Dan Savage hosts an evening of dramatic readings of some of the best advice you'll ever get. Savage's column, "Savage Love," is an internationally syndicated sex-advice column. He is also editor of
The Stranger and the author of
Skipping Towards Gomorrah.
Esther Freud
April 21 2005, 7:30 PM
Jewel Box Theatre at the Rendezvous
Esther Freud's novels often draw inspiration from her family history, a lineage that includes Sigmund, Ernst, and Lucian. Her first book,
Hideous Kinky, about two small girls and their bohemian mother in Morocco, was based on her own nomadic childhood. Her latest,
The Sea House, darts between past and present: an architect, his wife, and a German refugee in 1953, and a young woman 50 years later, piecing their letters and lives back together. Freud's other novels include
Peerless Flats, Summer at Gaglow, and
The Wild. In 1993, she was selected by
Granta as one of the 20 Best Young British Novelists.
David Rakoff
May 19 2005, 7:30 PM
The Big Picture
2502 1st Avenue, Seattle
With a sharp eye for the absurd, writer and
This American Life contributor David Rakoff joins the ranks of social observers David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell. His first collection,
Fraud, describes, among other things, a Buddhist retreat led by Steven Seagal and Rakoff's own brief stint as Sigmund Freud in the Christmas window at Barneys. His essays have appeared in
The New York Times Magazine, GQ, Vogue, and Salon.com.