ARTHUR PHILLIPS Reading/Signing THE SONG IS YOU May 8, 2009

How many of you regularly read the New York Times Book Review? If you do, then you'll have seen the front page rave for our next guest's new novel.

The Raconteur Presents

8 PM, Fri. May 8
ARTHUR PHILLIPS
Reading/Signing
THE SONG IS YOU
Arthur Phillips’ first novel, Prague, followed a group of young expats living in Budapest and yearning for the more glamorous city of the title. His second, The Egyptologist, set mostly in Egypt in the 1920s, had two unreliable narrators and was plotted with one devilishly clever reversal and switchback after another. Angelica, his third, began as a Victorian ghost story and gradually darkened into a complex psychological tale. Now comes The Song is You another radical departure in a career of radical departures. A middle aged man, a troubled relationship, an IPOD. At first glance The Song is You sounds like pure Nick Hornby territory, but it turns out to be a lot closer to the grim fable of The Red Shoes, a story in which characters are tragically torn between the twin forces of love and art. Julian Donahue is a skilled director of commercials who has come to know his limits. Cait O'Dwyer is a singer, and a bit of a comet that Julian somehow catches the tail of. Their courtship--as Julian evades a marriage split by an unbearable loss and Cait shoots single-mindedly toward stardom--is an intricately constructed pas de deux that is both surprising and convincing. Recently praised on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, The Song Is You takes on loneliness, alienation, middle age, and what it means to be saddled by your past. Yet despite these sober concerns, Phillips' sparkling prose makes for a seriously fun read. Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think, and for those of us who try to think and feel, The Song Is You captures the flip sides pretty much perfectly. Labeled “one of the best writers in America” by The Washington Post, Arthur Phillips is that rare thing among authors, a wisenheimer who's also wise. FREE! Complimentary wine. Books on sale at event.

ON DECK:

3 PM, Sat. May 9
National Book Award Winner
YA author MARY ANN MCGUIGAN
Reading/Signing
MORNING IN A DIFFERENT PLACE
An act of teenage rebellion in November 1963 sets off a chain of events that irrevocably changes 14-year-old Fiona O'Doherty's life and the world she inhabits. National Book Award winner Mary Ann McGuigan is as adept at evoking the class consciousness and racial politics of '60s New York as she is the timeless horrors of adolescence and with the evils of domestic violence and President Kennedy's assassination looming in the background, the author's portrait of the chameleonic nature of teenage girls builds aggressively to a powerful finale. FREE! Books on sale at event. Ages 12 & up.

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