Out on the Town

Went out to KGB Sunday night to hear Jardine Libaire read from her debut novel, Here Kitty Kitty. (Here's an excerpt she didn't read last night.) It's another novel with a New York protagonist in a tightening downward spiral (which makes the Q&A with The Romance Reader's Connection, of all places, a bit surprising) but Libaire has a fairly strong authorial voice and easily kept the assembled young literati enthralled.

The second half of the evening belonged to Binnie Kirshenbaum, who elected to read from the recently reissued A Disturbance in One Place. Three short passages (not including this one) introduced the audience to the narrator's trio of adulterous lovers, known as the hit man, the multimedia artist, and the love of her life. The selection was a pleasant surprise; I recalled it fondly from my reading about a decade ago, when I in my capacity as a novice bookstore clerk in Los Angeles was introduced to her during her tour to promote this very novel, and on the evidence of last night, it appears to have held up well.