The 'Maine' event

By Meredith Deliso

At nearly 400 hardcover pages, “Maine” is the least convenient beach read. But it’ll be worth toting around this summer.

In fact, J. Courtney Sullivan’s follow-up to her best-selling debut, “Commencement,” is shaping up to be a major beach read this summer, thanks in part to its setting — a summer at a Cape Neddick vacation home — but also its engaging, fully realized characters.

The ambitious novel (there’s a reason it’s 400 pages) follows three generations of Kelleher women — the fear-instilling but beautiful mother, Alice; her daughter, Kathleen, the black sheep of the family who’s moved across the country to work on a worm farm; her seemingly perfect, doll house-obsessed stepdaughter, Ann Marie; and her granddaughter, Maggie, a writer living in Brooklyn Heights who is pregnant, and freshly broken up with her boyfriend.

The cross-generation set-up allowed the Park Slope writer to explore a theme integral to her work.

“I am fascinated by the idea of how women develop personally in the context of the world that they are raised in, and live in as adults,” said Sullivan. “Everything I’ve written so far, I’ve looked at that.”

“Maine” has also provided the author to explore such heavy hitters as alcoholism, sibling rivalry and Catholic guilt, in a novel that can be achingly sad and refreshingly funny.

Sullivan is already at work on a new book — this one tackling the institution of marriage — and can be found almost daily at the Brooklyn Writers Space.

“It’s one of the most fabulous things about Brooklyn, it has totally saved me,” said Sullivan. “When I started writing full time, I always had this dream of working from home, sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea and writing all day. But there are so many distractions when at home. At the Writers Space, you wouldn’t hear a peep.”

“Maine” is still very much on her mind, though, and Sullivan will be at Cobble Hill’s BookCourt tomorrow for a reading, which won’t be short on bringing some Maine flavor to Brooklyn — there will be lobster rolls.

J. Courtney Sullivan at BookCourt [163 Court St. between Pacific and Dean streets in Cobble Hill, (718) 875-3677], June 14 at 7 pm. Free. For info, visit www.bookcourt.org.

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The accidental writer

 By Meredith Deliso

Songwriter Alina Simone’s landed the best gig of her life — and it has nothing to do with music.

The South Slope songstress, who previously hadn’t written anything seriously beyond a blog post, celebrates the release of her new memoir, “You Must Go and Win,” this month.

The collection of essays are owed, in part, to Eric Chinski, the editor-in-chief at Farrar, Straus & Giroux who discovered the singer while listening to his PJ Harvey station on Pandora a few years back.

“I was struck by her voice and fell in love with her music,” said Chinski. “Her voice is just so overwhelmingly good.”

Chinski soon realized there was potential in her written voice. After reaching out to Simone to say what a big fan he is, they became friends and he heard more about her life — her father’s exile by the KGB in the Ukraine, revisiting her homeland with her philosopher husband decades later, the ups and downs of striving to make it as a musician in New York.

Soon, a book deal followed, and Simone set aside the next year-and-a-half of her life to writing.

“It’s probably one of the weirdest thing if not the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me,” said Simone. “I was not even on the cusp of writing a book, or an article or a short story or anything.”

The resulting book is a collection of funny, cynical essays on meeting sketchy producers off of Craigslist, her obsession with Skopsy, a Russian castrati set, and battling fleas in her Williamsburg apartment.

Simone concurrently celebrates the release of a new album, “Make Your Own Danger,” but it appears she has caught the writing bug — bad. She recently finished a screenplay about a home organizer in New York City, and is deep into a novel about a woman searching for a passion in New York City and decides to become a DIY filmmaker.

“I don’t know if I have enough life material to do [autobiographical essays] again, so I’m trying different styles,” said Simone. “I feel like I put my best adventures in this book for now.”

Yes, for now.

Alina Simone at WORD [126 Franklin St. at Milton Street in Greenpoint, (718) 383-0096], tonight at 7:30 pm. Free. For info, visit www.alinasimone.com.

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The 'Summer' of Siri

 By Meredith Deliso

Siri Hustvedt could really use some science fiction in her life.

The writer, teacher, poet, and lecturer is the busiest she’s ever been, one week flying off to speak at the Sorbonne on the psychobiology of trauma, the next  participating in a book club with Jennifer Egan and Margot Livesey, and the one after that giving a reading.

“I’m so busy, that’s my only problem,” said Hustvedt, who reads at Cobble Hill's BookCourt tonight. “I wish I had three selves at the moment.”

In that scenario, one self, at least, would be writing. The longtime Park Sloper (and wife of fellow novelist Paul Auster) recently released her fifth novel, the heady, yet zippy, “The Summer Without Men.”

The summer in question belongs to Mia Fredricksen, a poet who, after her husband leaves her for a younger woman, suffers a breakdown and flees Brooklyn to her Minnesota hometown to recover among a land of women that includes a group of sage widows and, on the opposite spectrum, catty teenage girls whom she winds up teaching.

Despite its serious start, the novel finds the writer stretching her funny bone thanks to Mia’s caustic, ironic voice — much a departure from Hustvedt’s “rational, calmer” one — which calls her husband’s adulterer “the Pause,” as Hustvedt dives into the deep well of inspiration that is love, marriage, and gender differences.

“I’ve never written a character with that kind of voice,” said Hustvedt. “I’ve heard reports of people on planes laughing out loud while reading it. That makes me very happy.”

Hustvedt is already deep into her next work of fiction — the provocatively named “Monsters at Home” — though no doubt will be pulled towards essays and lectures on neurobiology, trauma, psychoanalyst — whatever suits her fancy. When not hitting the keys, she can be found browsing the aisles at her local Blue Apron Foods, or in her backyard garden, tending to her rhododendrons, roses and azaleas.

“When I’m gardening, the thing that I call my internal narrator, the voice in my head that’s generating inner speech, seems to turn off entirely,” said Hustedt. “It’s a relief, because I’m constantly manufacturing sentences in my head.”

Suffice it to say, she must not do a lot of gardening.

Siri Hustvedt reads at BookCourt [163 Court St. between Pacific and Dean streets in Cobble Hill, (718) 875-3677], tonight at 7 pm. Free. For info, visit www.bookcourt.org.

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'Gilbert' author Peter Hedges talks life in 'The Heights'

By Stephen Witt

He’s the writer from Iowa who didn’t go to the famed Iowa’s Writer’s workshop at the University of Iowa.

But Iowa’s loss is Brooklyn’s gain, and author Peter Hedges’ latest tome, “The Heights” (Dutton), offers up an often funny and captivating story that looks at contemporary life in Brooklyn Heights.

Hedges, who wrote the novel and the screenplay, “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” got the idea for the novel in late 1997 while sitting with his young family on a park bench in Pierrepont Playground as he began imagining what could happen in the neighborhood.

“I thought it was a great place for this story to occur. I took notes for many weeks and locked onto the idea of writing about a good marriage, and wanted to have that marriage go through an unthinkable test,” said Hedges.

The novel, which took 12 years to write, was interrupted several times by screenwriting assignments on the films “About a Boy” and “Dan in Real Life,” but slowly began to take shape.

The story involves the middle-class couple, Tim, who teaches at the Montague Academy, an exclusive private school in Brooklyn Heights, and his wife, Kate, who get involved with the wealthy Anna. Then, their lives become unhinged by a secret invitation from an unlikely messenger.

“I was interested in an ordinary couple being swept up by an extraordinary encounter with people who are not so ordinary,” said Hedges. “So if you’re a person that lives really on the ground and the earth, what happens when you get swept up and are in danger of flying or floating or sailing off into space?”

While there appears to be some similarities between real places in Brooklyn Heights and Hedges’ own life, the author insists the novel is a total work of fiction.

“I took great care in creating Montague Academy and Oak Lane where the main characters exist by setting up a fictional school and fictional street,” he said.

Hedges said his wife is from Brooklyn and the couple decided to move to the borough after their children were born.

“I tend to be a nine to five type of guy,” he said of his writing habits. “It doesn’t feel like work, but I try to treat it like a job.”

This includes walking the 15 minutes from his home in Boerum Hill each day to his studio office in Brooklyn Heights.

Although originally from Iowa, Hedges attended college at the North Carolina School for the Arts, and then came to New York, where he wrote several plays before getting his big break with “Gilbert Grape,” which starred Johnny Depp and Leonardo Di Caprio.

He still sees the two actors from time to time, most recently running into Depp at the recent Tim Burton exhibition at MOMA.

Hedges said Brooklyn Heights as the setting for the novel is also a tribute to a great neighborhood where such writers as Thomas Wolfe, Norman Mailer and Arthur Miller lived and wrote.

He also is proud to count himself as one of the growing number of writers to now call the borough his home.

“Brooklyn is the place to be and live from an artistic standpoint and this is Brooklyn’s moment. It’s a very vibrant scene,” he said.

Hedges will be reading from The Heights at Book Court, 163 Court Street on Thursday March 4 at 7 p.m.

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Writing corners

Tonight, Abby Sher reads from her new memoir, "Amen, Amen, Amen: Memoir of a Girl Who Couldn't Stop Praying (Among Other Things), at Union Hall.

When not performing on stage at places like the Magnet Theater, the Fort Greene-based writer/improv comedian can be found at her neighborhood coffeeshops, including Outpost, Tillie's, or Bittersweet.

"I have certain places even in the café where, oh this is where I get inspired,” Sher tells us.

We're felt the same thing about the Coffee Den in Carroll Gardens, where, when getting down to business, you can also enjoy their seasonal drinks, cheap sandwiches and free wi-fi.

Of course, those aren't the only laid-back coffee spots in Brooklyn. Do you have a certain neighborhood spot you love to write in? Share in the comments section.

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Brooklyn author's 'Heart' is in 'The Narrows'

By Meredith Deliso

As a kid, the first movie Tim McLoughlin ever saw was at the Pavilion 8 (which some of you may remember as the old Sanders). It was 1964, the film was “The Incredible Mr. Limpet,” starring Don Knotts.

“That place was a cathedral,” remembers McLoughlin, a Brooklyn native who grew up in Bensonhurst and now, after stints in several Brooklyn neighborhoods, currently resides in Brooklyn Heights (read an essay of his about the theater here).

Today, when the author goes to the Park Slope theater, his own movie is on the screen: “The Narrows,” based on his 2001 book “Heart of the Old Country,” published by Brooklyn-based publisher Akashic Books.

How “Heart” came to be published itself is the stuff worthy of cinema. A Brooklyn court clerk, McLoughlin knew he had a story in him, and in his late 30s, started writing a coming-of-age story about a 19 year old, Mike, going to school part time and working for Big Lou’s Car Service, on the periphery of organized crime in Bay Ridge.

Hailed for its refreshing voice and unromantic view of Brooklyn’s underclass, the sardonic look at provincialism in the borough went on to be published in five languages, won Italy’s Premio Penne award, and was optioned to be made into the independent film, starring Kevin Zegers, Vincent D’Onofrio, Sophia Bush and Eddie Cahill.

Though he had no part in the screenplay, McLoughlin is good friends with the screenwriter, Tatiana Blackington, whom he met while in a creative writing class at the West Side YMCA.

While the film naturally departs from the book, the biggest change has to be the title.“‘I would obviously have preferred it if they stuck with my title, but I can’t really argue with ‘The Narrows.’ That sounds pretty cool,” says McLoughlin.

Keeping true to form, the film was also shot in and around Bay Ridge (regulars may recognize Kelly’s bar at 94th Street and Fifth Avenue, as well as a social club a couple blocks away).

“It was a low budget, independent feature, yet to me I’m standing there and it’s looking like ‘Spiderman 3,’” says the author on his first foray into cinema. “It was amazing to see those moments when I could suddenly identify a sequence from the book.”

In bringing the characters to life, some of the actors were “spooky good,” says McLoughlin.

“There’s no actor in that film that I don’t think does a good job of portraying the characters,” he says.

The biggest name attached to the film has to be D’Onofrio’s, who plays Mike’s father with a savviness yet also a sadness that impressed McLoughlin.

“He told me later that he based his physical mannerisms and some of his patterns of speech on an old relative of his who was from Bensonhurst,” says the author. “It worked really well.”

The cast also boasts a Brooklynite in Monica Keena, the girlfriend of the Mike character.“Man did she ever nail Gina,” says McLoughlin. “The attitude, the accent, all of it is just right. Monica Keena pulled off pure Brooklyn.”

Next up for the author, who still keeps his day job as a court clerk (he has four years left until his pension and then it’s writing full time) and is also the editor of Akashic’s Brooklyn Noir series, is his second novel, an amateur sleuth story about a bartender on Wall Street who solves a murder. He hopes to have that completed by the end of this year.

When McLoughlin thinks about his journey, from his first published book to now film adaptation, “It amazes me,” he says. “There’s no part of it that hasn’t been fun.”

“The Narrows” is playing now at Park Slope’s Pavilion 8 (188 Prospect Park West). For screening times, call 718-369-0838.

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Please step back

Member of the Brooklyn literati and New Yorker editor Ben Greenman celebrates the release of his new book, “Please Step Back,” with a reading tonight at DUMBO’s Galapagos Art Space (16 Main St.).

The funk-rock novel tells the story of a sixties rock star named Rock Foxx and has been praised by Walter Mosley for the way it “sings of the back-street, back-stage hyper-kinetic moment when music, stardom, and cultural sea changes pushed America irrevocably forward.”

The book's published by another DUMBO fixture, Melville House (Brooklyn Based has a nice feature on the publishere here.)

For the Galapagos event, Greenman will fittingly be joined by New Yorker pop music critic Sasha Frere-Jones for a conversation on writing, music, and more, with a set by DJ Doc Delay (Psycrunk) to follow.

The first 72 people to arrive in fashion evocative of the era receive a complimentary cocktail and book.

Doors open at 6 p.m., with the show at 7 p.m. The event is free. For more information, call 718-222-8500.

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Beware! These poems come with strings attached

By Meredith Deliso

(Published in the 4.16.09 issue of 24/Seven)

While living in Los Angeles, Rick Reid was told that his work, which spoke of the visual art process, had a “New York” vibe. Having never lived in the city before, he had no idea what that meant, but he eventually did find his way to the East Coast, moving to Greenpoint three years ago.

On April 14, the conceptual artist and writer celebrates a work of his that, in the same vein, speaks to the verbal art process, when his book of poems, “To be hung from the ceiling by strings of varying length,” is released, with a launch party at Greenpoint’s Word bookstore.

Though the book cover says “Poems by Rick Reid,” the author himself isn’t so sure if it should be read as one long poem or individual ones.

“It’s not necessarily what you’d expect when you open a book of poems,” says Reid. “I imagine superimposing them on each other.”

If that sounds vaguely like an art process, it’s because Reid was inspired by the act of layering and re-layering paint on a canvas, one the artist started on a painting several years ago. Retracing a shadow that fell on a canvas and would move each day as the sun did, each image was repetitively superimposed upon the other, and helped Reid look at the process of painting in a new way.

“The way in which the light hit that canvas and started to go off the canvas – I started to challenge my normal process of painting,” says Reid. “I would approach the canvas as a frame which then was being cracked open, which was really exciting to me, to be able to lose a singular understanding of the way a painting should be, or a way a book should be, or a way a poem should be, and create a new being.”

While Reid never finished that painting, the poems partly inspired by that thinking became “Strings,” as he looked to challenge, not the painting process, but language itself. In this, Reid looked to “Rose is a rose is a rose” writer Gertrude Stein for further inspiration.

“She’s somebody I always return to,” says Reid. In particular, one text of Stein’s Reid would return to while working on these poems was the long serial poem “Stanzas in Meditation.”

“What struck me about that text is that when I picked it up and started reading it, I didn’t have a clear understand of what was going on,” says Reid. “The text was teaching me a new way to read, a new way to listen, a new way to create meaning. I was having these moments of complete obscurity and disconnection and then these moments of a really strong connection. The text wasn’t so much about understanding and knowing but more about a kind of urgency, a tension in my relationship to language that normally I would take for granted.”

Reading “Strings” can be a similar process. The name itself, says Reid, is an invitation to take the book apart and decode this familiar yet wholly unfamiliar language, as he looks at memory and perception, piecing together words and imagery, seemingly like pieces picked randomly out of a hat, that was produced out of Reid’s own desire to develop a new process of writing, as he did in painting.

Going to the Ph.D creating writing program at the University of Southern California, Reid met Chris Albani, the creator of Black Goat, an independent poetry imprint of the Brooklyn-based publisher Akashic Books. Albani was the ideal match for Reid as he looked to publish “Strings.”

“Akashic and Black Goat were more than willing to do artistic jumps,” says Reid, who retained much control in the look and layout of his book, including the brevity of the pages, which in some cases contain no more than four words (see page 39: “not this in fingers”).

“Reading tends to be a suffocating experience – we shut down our senses, close up our bodies. We have this very visually focused relationship with the text,” says Reid. “Creating attention in that space as well is important to me. It’s not like the book jumps out and bites you, but you are having to read a lot of pages a lot faster than you normally would” for a “more physical relationship with the book.”

Living just a couple blocks away from the bookstore, Reid saw Word as the perfect spot to host his book release party as he culminates his work, which has traveled with him these past 10 years, in his Brooklyn home.

“It’s wonderful to have a bookstore like Word,” says Reid. “It’s important to have not only a place to have access to uncommon materials but also as a venue to experience people’s work who might not be experienced, people who are dealing with smaller presses, people who are doing work that’s under the radar.”

Rick Reid celebrates the release of “To be hung from the ceiling by strings of varying length” on April 14 at Word (126 Franklin St.) at 7:30 p.m. For more information, call 718-383-0096. The book is available on Amazon.

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