Author Amanda Filipacchi brainstorming with herself while writing Love Creeps in 2003 (and doing trick photography when not writing)
For those who’ve ever felt like an ugly ducking (aka humans), commiserate with Amanda Filipacchi as she reads from her newest novel The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty. Filipacchi, who recently divulged her own feelings of inadequacy in the looks department in a confessional essay for the New Yorker, will join Siri Hustvedt, author of The Blazing World, to discuss “perception and desire, seeing and being seen.” Filipacchi has published several novels set against the backdrop of NYC; this newest offering gained the admiration of Slate, Huffington Post, and Brooklyn authoress Sheila Heti, who called it “a seductively powerful fable about the ugly powers of beauty, the redemptive powers of creativity, and the nature of true love.”
Tuesday, Feb. 24, at 7 p.m. McNally Jackson Books (52 Prince Street, Nolita)
Relentless cold, train delays, and ferry cancellations got you feeling a little stabby? Head to KGB Bar for the book release party of Love Highway, Stephanie Dickinson‘s fictionalized retelling of a grim true-life tragedy. Dickinson borrowed a story of tabloid fame as the premise for her newest novel, in which 18-year-old Jennifer Moore leaves the safety of her Manhattan home one night to go clubbing in New Jersey and ends up the victim of a grisly rape and murder. You may remember the story from when it hit cable news back in 2006; naturally, Fox News blamed the victim and her halter top for the fact that she was stalked by a pimp and murdered while one of his prostitutes watched.
Tuesday, Feb. 24, at 7 p.m. KGB Bar (85 East 4th Street, East Village)
In the market for a little perspective? Just the synopsis of Redeployment, Phil Klay‘s collection of fictional stories from the frontline of Iraq, made us cringe at the triviality of our civilian woes. One tale in the National Book Award-winning novel recounts the horrific plight of a soldier who resorted to shooting and eating dogs because the only alternative food source was human corpses (yyyyikes). On a marginally lighter note, the book also includes the darkly comic story “Money as a Weapons System,” about a young Foreign Service Officer who’s given the absurd task of helping Iraqis improve their lives by teaching them to play baseball. Don’t miss your chance to hear Klay discuss the book in a conversation with fellow author Maxwell Neely-Cohen (Echo of the Boom), at Redeployment’s paperback release party.
Tuesday, Feb. 24, at 7 p.m. WORD (126 Franklin Street, Greenpoint)
Also tonight: Read an Excerpt From Kim Gordon’s Memoir, Then See Her at Strand
