Printer’s Row / Mark Sarvas
Saturday, June 7th, 2008Don’t know of you’ve noticed, but the annual Printer’s Row Book Fair takes place this weekend in Chicago, and there’s an unusually fine lineup of writers appearing. I’ve added the most notable ones to my events list at right, but check out the the full events schedule for complete info.
Two events I’m planning to make today: at 2 p.m at the Grace Place Sanctuary, 2nd floor (events map here) there is a panel of international writers including Uwem Akpan, Nam Le, and Rabih Alameddine, hosted by the Trib’s Mary Schmich. At 3pm, novelist and friend-of-GRJ Mark Sarvas participates in a panel with Dana Vachon, author of Mergers & Acquisitions over in the River Room at University Center. The panel is moderated by Jessica Reaves.
If you haven’t read it, Sarvas’s first novel, called Harry, Revised, is a spendidly funny but also serious and moving portrait of a man left adrift by his wife’s recent death. His decision to finally become the hero of his own life, as David Copperfield would say, has comical consequences for everyone around him, but ultimately reflects the way all of us try to come to terms with the distance between our hopes for ourselves and that very particular and seemingly random person we end up being without necessarily choosing to be. Sigh. And then laugh.
