Readings, Rated
Eileen Favorite
Date: Thursday, January 17, 2008
Time: 7:30 - 9:00 p.m.
Location: Women & Children First
Eileen Favorite has written the book for any lit-lover who gets, well, a little caught up in her favorite fictional escapes–which is you, dear reader, correct? The lovable and terrible and peculiar and tortured characters we get so damn involved with while reading, well, they do tend to haunt us a little–in a good way, usually–when the story’s over. Favorite, a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has found a wonderful way to spin that readerly obsession/over-identification into narrative in her debut novel, The Heroines. (Full disclosure: Favorite’s a former colleage of mine.) The book is peopled by the likes of Scarlett O’Hara, Emma Bovary, and Franny Glass, all of whom have taken leave of their tragic fictional worlds to soujourn briefly at–where else?–an artists’ retreat in the real world. There, a 13-year-old girl named Penny crosses their paths…and here Favorite’s story takes off.
Favorite will read from the novel and take questions at this event; she’ll also be appearing at The Book Stall at Chestnut Court in Winnetka on Tuesday, January 22 at 7 p.m. and at Borders on W. 95th on Saturday, January 26 at 4 p.m. For more info and a couple excerpts from The Heroines, check out her site.