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Where | Occidental Center for the Arts | ||
Cost | free - donations gratefully accepted | ||
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Book Party:
Disposable Man by Michael LevitinFriday, April 12th 7 PM
“Let me begin by telling you about the time my great aunt Josephine wrote a postcard to Albert Einstein asking him to save her life.”
So starts this debut novel about American journalist Max Krumm, a grandson of Holocaust survivors who has returned to his ancestral city of Berlin to confront the ghosts that still haunt him. Woven into the backdrop of revolutionary-era Russia and Nazi Europe, Disposable Man tackles enduring themes of loss, male identity and the search for meaning. Levitin’s story about one man’s attempt to come to terms with history is also a story about modern men in search of themselves. Holding up a mirror to Gen X and millennials, it explores today’s generation of stalled, disposable men as it follows Krumm on a rambling journey east through Poland into Lithuania where he attempts to uncover a family secret and, in the process, regains his manhood.
“This remarkable novel about a young man’s search for the continuity of his portable life, among the ruins of a murdered past and in the face of a blank future, is rich with delights, insights, warranted sadness, and a longing to make sense of history.”
– Todd Gitlin, author of “The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage” and the novel “Undying”
Free admission, though all donations are gratefully accepted. Selected readings by the author, Q&A, book sales and signing. Refreshments, wine and beer available.
Author Michael Levitin
Michael Levitin grew up in Forestville and attended El Molino HighSchool, where he got his start as a writer editing The Lion’s Roar newspaper. He studied history at UC Santa Cruz and later earned his Masters degree from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. After covering the Bolivian Water War in 2000, Michael went to work as a freelance correspondent in Barcelona and Berlin covering politics, culture and climate change. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, TIME and Newsweek, among other publications. Michael was co-founding editor of the Occupied Wall Street Journal and founding editor of the Prague Literary Review. Disposable Man is his first novel.