City Lights Hosts Akashic Books

To celebrate 10 years of publishing marginalized and outlandishly talented literary innovators, Akashic Books is sending three of its finest storytellers — Chris Abani, Joe Meno, and Felicia Luna Lemus — out for a dynamic and passionate all-star reading the likes of which cannot be described without a run-on opening sentence containing a half dozen dazzling adjectives. Abani reads from his new novel Song for Night, which tells the story of a voiceless West African boy soldier who journeys through a nightmarish and extraordinary landscape of war, from which Brangelina and Madonna are strangely absent. Meno, while largely known for his raw account of adolescence in the ’90s in Hairstyles of the Damned, reads from his re-edited debut novel Tender as Hellfire. Get ready for poignant treatments of pain and confusion and a cast of displaced trailer park floozies. Lemus reads from Like Son, her new novel that follows Frank Cruz, a 30-year-old post-punk, through present day New York, 1990s Los Angeles, and 1940s Mexico City as he grapples with his dead father's legacy. Expect the folk heroes from Akashic to create a safe space where nouns, adjectives, and other parts of speech can finally come together for a live demonstration of literary merit.
Thu., Oct. 4, 7 p.m., 2007