Jonathan Lethem Discusses Cellophane Bricks & Brooklyn Crime Novel
Oct 29, 7 PM ET • Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Public Library, Dweck Center • 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY 11238
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. The surreal and form-defying panoply of his stories, essays, and novels celebrates—and mourns—this forsaken world of the visual and plastic arts. That leap, between the cellophane ephemerality of language and the brick-like tangibility of visual art, which operates as a sublimated wellspring for Lethem’s writing, is the subject of this book.
Cellophane Bricks mortars together Lethem’s fictions in response to (and in exchange for) artworks by his friends with dozens of original essays. Here we tour 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. Unique in Lethem’s kaleidoscopic oeuvre, Cellophane Bricks comprises a kind of stealth memoir of his parallel life in visual culture. Gorgeously designed, with stunning, full-color images from the author’s own collection and elsewhere, Cellophane Bricks is a ravishing assemblage for story lovers of all kinds. Lethem also discusses Brooklyn Crime Novel, out now in paperback.
About the Author
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.
About the Venue:
Conveniently located at BPL's Central Library on Grand Army Plaza, the fully accessible, 189-seat Dweck auditorium provides a comfortable space in which to enjoy the library's rich and wide-ranging schedule of free public programs. The Dweck features literary series, author talks, public affairs and humanities programs, film screenings, chamber music concerts, pop and jazz music, as well as programs for children. Acoustically well balanced and with unobstructed sightlines, this intimate auditorium has been attracting ever-larger audiences since it opened in the fall of 2007.
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
