Program Details

Edwidge Danticat, Everything Inside

Faculty: Madge McKeithen

From the publisher: 
“Rich with hard-won wisdom and humanity, set in locales from Miami and Port-au-Prince to a small unnamed country in the Caribbean and beyond, Everything Inside is at once wide in scope and intimate, as it explores the forces that pull us together, or drive us apart, sometimes in the same searing instant. In these eight powerful, emotionally absorbing stories, a romance unexpectedly sparks between two wounded friends; a marriage ends for what seem like noble reasons, but with irreparable consequences; a young woman holds on to an impossible dream even as she fights for her survival; two lovers reunite after unimaginable tragedy, both for their country and in their lives; a baby’s christening brings three generations of a family to a precarious dance between old and new; a man falls to his death in slow motion, reliving the defining moments of the life he is about to lose. This is the indelible work of a keen observer of the human heart — a master at her best."

Please read Everything Inside before the first meeting of the Literary Salon.

Sarah Schulman, The Cosmopolitans

Faculty: Justin Sherwood

From the publisher: 
“A modern retelling of Balzac's classic Cousin Bette by one of America's most prolific and significant writers. Earl, a black, gay actor working in a meatpacking plant, and Bette, a white secretary, have lived next door to each other in the same Greenwich Village apartment building for thirty years. Shamed and disowned by their families, both found refuge in New York and in their domestic routine. Everything changes when Hortense, a wealthy young actress from Ohio, comes to the city to 'make it.' Textured with the grit and gloss of mid-century Manhattan, The Cosmopolitans is a lush, inviting read, and the truths it frames about the human need for love and recognition remain long after the book is closed.”

Please read The Cosmopolitans before the first meeting of the Literary Salon.

Aaron Smith, The Book of Daniel

Faculty: Kathleen Ossip

From the publisher:
"A tour de force, Aaron Smith’s fourth collection of poetry, The Book of Daniel, resists the easy satisfactions of Beauty while managing the contemporary entanglements of art, sex, and grief. Part pop-thriller, part queer rage, and part mourning, these poems depict not only the complications of representation in the age of social media but a critique of identity. Taking on subjects as diverse as the literary canon, his mother’s incurable cancer diagnosis, gay bashing, celebrity gossip, bigotry, violence on TV, and Alexander McQueen’s suicide, Smith proves that the confessional lyric is not dead. In tangents as wild as they are reigned, with his characteristic blend of directness, vulnerability and humor, these poems take on the world as it is, a world we love even as it resists all intimacy."

Please read The Book of Daniel before the first Literary Salon.

Trisha Low, Socialist Realism

Faculty: Larissa Pham

From the publisher:
"When Trisha Low moves West, her journey is motivated by the need to arrive 'somewhere better'— someplace utopian, like revolution; or safe, like home; or even clarifying, like identity. Instead, she faces the end of her relationships, a family whose values she has difficulty sharing, and America’s casual racism, sexism, and homophobia. In this book-length essay, the problem of how to account for one’s life comes to the fore—sliding unpredictably between memory, speculation, self-criticism, and art criticism, Low seeks answers that she knows she won’t find. Attempting to reconcile her desires with her radical politics, she asks: do our quests to fulfill our deepest wishes propel us forward, or keep us trapped in the rubble of our deteriorating world?"

Please read Socialist Realism before the first Literary Salon.

R. Eric Thomas, Here for It

Faculty: Sharon Mesmer

From the publisher:
"In essays by turns hysterical and heartfelt, Thomas reexamines what it means to be an 'other' through the lens of his own life experience. He explores the two worlds of his childhood: the barren urban landscape where his parents’ house was an anomalous bright spot, and the Eden-like school they sent him to in white suburbia. He writes about struggling to reconcile his Christian identity with his sexuality, the exhaustion of code-switching in college, accidentally getting famous on the internet (for the wrong reason), and the surreal experience of covering the 2016 election for Elle online, and the seismic changes that came thereafter. Ultimately, Thomas seeks the answer to these ever more relevant questions: Is the future worth it? Why do we bother when everything seems to be getting worse? As the world continues to shift in unpredictable ways, Thomas finds the answers to these questions by re-envisioning what 'normal' means and in the powerful alchemy that occurs when you at last place yourself at the center of your own story. Here for It will resonate deeply and joyfully with everyone who has ever felt pushed to the margins, struggled with self-acceptance, or wished to shine more brightly in a dark world. Stay here for it—the future may surprise you."

Please read Here for It before the first Literary Salon.

Juliana Huxtable, Mucus in My Pineal Gland

Faculty: Theodore Kerr

From the publisher:
"Mucus in My Pineal Gland is a 180+ page collection of poems and writings by artist and performer Juliana Huxtable, co-published by Wonder. Juliana Huxtable is a New York City-based writer, performer, and artist. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including Artforum, Candy, Tropical Cream, and Mousse. She was included in the 2015 New Museum Triennial, curated by Ryan Trecartin and Lauren Cornell."

From Christopher Soto for Lambda Literary: “There is an obsession in this book about what is authentic and what is fake. What is real and what is simulated? What are we socialized into and what can we socialize ourselves out of? There is a refusal towards assimilation that is not only seen in the philosophical concepts of the work but also in how the work is functioning linguistically.”

Please read Mucus in My Pineal Gland before the first Literary Salon.