Andrew Porter Book Signing - "The Theory of Light & Matter" October 17, 2008

In the tradition of John Cheever, The Theory of Light & Matter by Andrew Porter consists of ten stories that explore the loss and sacrifice in American suburbia. In idyllic suburbs across the country, from Philadelphia to San Francisco, narrators struggle to find meaning or value in their lives because of (or in spite of) something that has happened in their pasts. Memory often replaces absence in these stories as characters reconstruct the events of their pasts in an attempt to understand what they have chosen to keep. These struggles lead to an array of secretive and escapist behavior as the characters, united by middle-class social pressures, try to maintain a sense of order in their lives. Drawing on the tradition of John Cheever, these stories recall and revisit the landscape of American suburbia through the lens of a new generation. The book won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction.

Event submitted by Eventful.com on behalf of wordsmithsbooks.