EVENT: Armistead Maupin ('Mary Ann in Autumn')

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15 @ 7:30PM
ARMISTEAD MAUPIN
Mary Ann in Autumn: A Tales of the City Novel
Free and open to the public
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Armistead Maupin personally presents his latest Tales of the City novel to the Castro on Monday, November 15 at 7:30pm with a reading and signing of MARY ANN IN AUTUMN.

This is Armistead's only scheduled appearance in the Castro.

From Publishers Weekly:
In the sure-to-please follow-up to Michael Tolliver Lives, the bestselling Tales of the City reboot, it's been 20 years since series anchor Mary Ann Singleton left her family and headed to New York. Maupin's San Francisco is comforting in its familiarity, and the gang is (mostly) all here, older, wiser, and settled in: Michael "Mouse" Tolliver is married to Ben; Shawna, Mary Ann's estranged daughter, is a popular sex blogger who is dating Otto, an enigmatic professional clown; and grand dame Anna Madrigal, once landlady to Michael and Mary Ann, is still kicking in her late 80s. Into this milieu returns Mary Ann, who ditched her husband and the young Shawna for a career in television. Now, nearing 60, she's back with news she can't bear to tell anyone but Michael. From the haven of his tiny garden cottage, Mary Ann regroups and confronts some uncomfortable chapters in her past. As ever, Maupin's edgy wit energizes the layered story lines. His keen eye for irony and human foible is balanced by an innate compassion in this examination of the life of a woman of a certain age.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15 @ 7:30PM
ARMISTEAD MAUPIN
Mary Ann in Autumn: A Tales of the City Novel
Free and open to the public
Facebook RSVP

EVENT: Daniel Allen Cox ('Krakow Melt') w/ Kevin Killian ('Impossible Princess')

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19 @ 7:30PM
DANIEL ALLEN COX
Krakow Melt
Free and open to the public
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Daniel Allen Cox reads and signs copies of his new novel, KRAKOW MELT - our October Book Club selection. Kevin Killian moderates the discussion.

Pyromaniacs fight homophobia in a Polish city where nothing is fireproof.

This second novel by Lambda Literary Award finalist Daniel Allen Cox (Shuck) is an incendiary story about two pyromaniacs who fight homophobia in Krakow, Poland, one of the fronts of the Solidarność revolution that eventually toppled the Berlin Wall in 1989. It’s 2005, and Poland is grappling with its newfound role as a member of the European Union; the country dips into moral crisis as Pope John Paul II (a Pole) approaches death while the country’s soon-to-be president makes homophobic declarations.

Radek, a bisexual artist and a practitioner of the extreme urban sport parkour, is convinced that fire is the great stabilizer. While creating miniature replicas of the world’s great infernos—Chicago 1871, San Francisco 1906, London 1666—he meets Dorota, a literature student and budding pyromaniac. Driven by rage, sexual curiosity for one another, and Pink Floyd, they buck Church, government, and the LGBT community to find sexual freedom, escaping their enemies by scaling the crumbling walls and ideas of the city.

Provocative and unnerving, Krakow Melt is at once a love letter and a fiery call to arms.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19 @ 7:30PM
DANIEL ALLEN COX
Krakow Melt
Free and open to the public
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EVENT: Steven Saylor ('Empire: A Novel of Imperial Rome')

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11 @ 7:30PM
STEVEN SAYLOR
Empire: A Novel of Imperial Rome
Free and Open to the Public
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The New York Times bestselling author and "modern master of historical fiction" (USA Today) Steven Saylor introduces his highly-anticipated new novel EMPIRE and focuses on the heavy homosexual undertones only at A Different Light.

In the words of Steven himself, "I'd like to think EMPIRE is a Big Gay Book. The sex lives of the emperors is so wildly varied, the historian Suetonius felt obliged to point out that the oddball Claudius 'had no interest in either boys or men.' What a weirdo!

The widespread nature of homosexuality in the Roman Empire has been hinted at in previous fiction, but I think EMPIRE breaks new ground. The story of Sporus, the eunuch-wife of Nero, has never been told in a novel before. The boy was a ringer for Nero's dead wife, and Nero fell for him at first sight; eventually Sporus was castrated and led the rest of his life as a woman, making him one of history's first known transsexuals.

After two hereditary dynasties that ended in disaster, the Romans turned to emperors who produced no offspring—and obtained good government and stability at last. You might even say that EMPIRE is the story of 'how the gays saved civilization,' since it's the unapologetic boy-lovers Trajan (a military genius) and Hadrian (an artistic genius) who finally bring sanity to the Roman Empire.

Less well known is the ironic twist on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' found in Trajan's policy toward that despised minority, the Christians. Yes, a gay emperor decided it was best to tolerate the troublesome, gods-hating Christians, and even allowed them to serve in the military, as long as they weren't too flagrant with their perversity. (I couldn't make up this sort of thing.)"

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11 @ 7:30PM
STEVEN SAYLOR
Empire: A Novel of Imperial Rome
Free and Open to the Public
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EVENT: Stephen McCauley ('Insignificant Others') & Sebastian Stuart ('The Hour Between')

AUGUST 3 @ 7:30pm
STEPHEN McCAULEY / SEBASTIAN STUART
Insignificant Others / The Hour Between
Free and open to the public
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STEPHEN McCAULEY, INSIGNIFICANT OTHERS
Narrator Richard and his partner, Conrad, are a well-adjusted gay couple living in Boston at the end of the American Century in McCauley's adroit latest (after ALTERNATIVES TO SEX). They have an understanding that allows for the occasional infidelity, but when Richard realizes that Conrad's current fling may be luring him away, he begins to worry. It doesn't help that Richard is becoming infatuated with his own insignificant other, Benjamin, who leads a double life as a supposedly happily married father of two. Richard's problems, though, go well beyond his love life, and with a dry, caustic wit and the occasionally weighty social observation, he describes how he's coping with his own exercise addiction, his suspicious sister, a client at work who may or may not be on the brink of going crazy,etc. But it's an unlikely alliance with Conrad's business partner and the slow unraveling of his problems that adds an unexpectedly and refreshingly sentimental dimension to this accomplished comedy.
- Publishers Weekly

SEBASTIAN STUART, THE HOUR BETWEEN
In 1960s Manhattan, Arthur MacDougal has been thrown out of his exclusive prep school and sent off to the Spooner School for the disciplinary challenged in rural Connecticut. Just minutes after his parents speed back to the city, he hits it off with the fragile and quirky Katrina Felt, daughter of a famous show biz couple, who immediately recognizes Arthur's latent gayness. Enter Sapphire, Katrina's roommate, a promiscuous but sweet hippy chick; Nicolas, Arthur's roommate, still dealing with his mother's death; and Lenny, the muscular, snaggle-toothed townie who catches Arthur's eye. Novelist-playwright Stuart sets his fully drawn character loose in a familiar era, but there's nothing quaint or retro about his '60s set; the ubiquitous drugs, the war, the new sense of sexual freedom and the fight against the establishment are pervasive and essential elements. This simple but wholly moving coming-of-age story features a worthy successor to Holden Caulfield coming to grips with what (and who) he cannot change.
- Publishers Weekly

INSIGNIFICANT OTHERS is our August Book Club selection. Sign up for the book club and get 10% off. Magnet Book Club on Facebook.

AUGUST 3 @ 7:30pm
STEPHEN McCAULEY / SEBASTIAN STUART
Insignificant Others / The Hour Between
Free and open to the public
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