Dazed and Confused: Two Great Writers on Boomer Angst
Arlington Reads 2014 takes on a complicated generation with “Dazed and Confused: Two Great Writers on Boomer Angst,” featuring two authors noted for an economy of words and a keen realism.
This spring Arlington Public Library’s annual one-theme, one-community initiative will focus on novels by Ann Beattie and Richard Ford, authors who explore seemingly unremarkable situations with characters who share an underlying ambivalence about commitments, careers, relationships and themselves.
Irony and disappointment may never be far off but the storytelling is always compassionate, always intelligent, always inspiring.
- Thursday, April 10, 7:00 p.m. – Ann Beattie will speak at Central Library
- Thursday, April 24, 7:00 p.m. – Richard Ford will speak at Central Library
Ann Beattie’s “The New Yorker Stories” collects legendary works from the previous four decades for which she won the PEN/Malamud Award for achievement in the short story form and the Rea Award for the Short Story.
The New York Times Book Review calls Beattie “a national treasure, the author of short stories that will endure and continue to inspire.”
She will be on stage for a conversation with Library Director Diane Kresh at Central Library Auditorium the evening of April 10 at 7 p.m.
Richard Ford has published seven novels and four collections of stories. His “Independence Day” was the first book ever awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction. His Arlington Reads featured title, “The Sportswriter,” established and shared with “Independence Day” the yearning, anguished “everyman” character Frank Bascombe for an eventual trilogy. Time named “The Sportswriter” one of the 100 best novels published since the magazine’s founding.
Richard Ford will be interviewed at Central Library Auditorium by Jeffrey Brown of the “PBS NewsHour” the evening of April 24 at 7 p.m.
Arlington Reads is made possible through the generous support of the Friends of the Arlington Public Library.
