Promised update concerning the Bookforum/New Museum event: fantastic slate, including the great Vivian Gornick.  Note well the RSVP info.

The time is fast approaching, children, the time of folding chairs, jug wine, and uncomfortable silences.  I will soon be gamely reading haphazardly chosen selections from The Fugitives.  Of course I want to do this in front of the biggest crowds I can muster, so I'm announcing WEEK ONE READINGS.

Draw your rockers close to the cracker barrel, get out your shovels and charcoal, and prepare to write this down.  

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 7PM
BOOKCOURT
163 COURT STREET, BROOKLYN
(F OR G TRAIN TO BERGEN STREET)
RSVP on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1670470806525320/

Free wine.  Plenty of standing room, folks.  Excellent bookstore.  Free wine.  This is the official book launch.  Free wine available.  I will be reading and taking questions.  There's wine there.  I'll be signing books, too.  If you're a completist who's bringing that copy of The Spitting Image that I appeared in twenty years ago, I'll sign that too, but forgive me for grimacing, it's really just a harmless rictus.  You have to be this tall and accompanied by parent or caregiver if you want me to sign a bound galley of any of my books, because I need to know that you have permission to take food from the mouths of my children.  Also, there'll be wine.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 7PM
LILLIAN VERNON WRITERS HOUSE
58 WEST 10TH STREET, NEW YORK
(A, B, C, D, E, F etc. TO W.4TH STREET)
RSVP on Facebook: ​https://www.facebook.com/events/929273067127683/

I'm reading here with Samantha Hunt, whose excellent Mr. Splitfoot was just published by HMH.  This series is part of NYU's creative writing program, so we'll also be talking with Darin Strauss, an NYU faculty member and the author most recently of Half a Life.  These are very nice, bright, articulate people, which should make up for having come to see me.  Space is somewhat limited here, so wear your Doc Martens and be prepared to force your way in, Droog-style.  Not many people know the secret value of unbridled aggression in obtaining and keeping a coveted seat at a poetry reading.  I'm not certain about wine in this case, but I'm betting heavily on it.  As Pliny the Elder said, where there are folding chairs, there's wine.  Except at AA meetings, usually.  Did I say poetry?  It's not poetry.  

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, TIME TK
NEW MUSEUM 
235 BOWERY, NEW YORK
(F TO 2ND AVE., 6 TO ASTOR PLACE)

Details on this are a little sketchy, but last year David Byrne was featured.  This year, who knows?  Kim Gordon?  Cheetah Chrome?  Von Lmo?  The future is a constantly unspooling mystery.  Wine situation also unknown, unfortunately.  The theme is "Trial and Error," which nicely describes The Fugitives in nearly every respect, particularly as regards its composition.  Stand by for further details.  

As far as I know, each of these events is 100% FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.  If they are not, I will help you complain to the manager.