Book Launch: Jonathan Lethem and Mass MoCA’s Denise Markonish Discuss Cellophane Bricks
Jul 11, 6 PM EST • North Adams, MA: MASS MoCA • 1111 Mass MoCA Way
Join ZE Books at Mass MoCA’s Research & Development Store on July 11 for a captivating conversation with Denise Markonish, MASS MoCA Chief Curator, and author Jonathan Lethem as they venture into a discussion of Lethem’s latest book Cellophane Bricks: A Life in Visual Culture
Many know Jonathan Lethem as one of our most celebrated and eclectic writers, whose iconic novels—Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude, Chronic City, among many others—play with genres and storytelling modes like a DJ mixing music. But Lethem grew up in his father’s studio, went to art school, and, in his own words, “made hundreds if not thousands of drawings, collages, paintings, hand-drawn comics, and even two animated shorts” before diverting, at nineteen, to prose.
We’re excited to launch Cellophane Bricks, which gathers a lifetime of Lethem’s art-writing, along with stunning, full-color images collected by the author. Here we tour Lethem’s fictions in response to (and in exchange for) artworks by his friends; his meditations on comics and graffiti art; his collaborations with artists and interventions into visual culture, and his portrait of the museum that was and continues to be his home, untethered from geography. Cellophane Bricks comprises a stealth memoir of Jonathan Lethem’s parallel life in visual culture.
For all press inquiries please contact Alexander Galan, ag@vidoun.com or Thora Siemsen, tds@vidoun.com
A rapturous, ravenous celebration of visual art and storytelling from one of our most innovative writers and critical minds.
Release: Jul 30, 2024
Hardcover ISBN: 9798988670001 • 424 pages
UK release: Sep 19, 2024 • UK Price: £30
© Rosdiana Ciaravolo_Getty
Jonathan Lethem is the author of Brooklyn Crime Novel and twelve other novels. His stories and essays have been collected in five volumes, and his work translated into over thirty languages. He has been recipient of The National Book Critics Circle Award, The World Fantasy Award, The Berlin Prize, and a MacArthur Fellowship.