Carlos Allende presents Coffee, Shopping, M**der, Love (in person)

Join us on Wednesday, July 6 at 6:00 PM at the Bureau as we welcome Carlos Allende, author of Coffee, Shopping, M**der, Love, in a conversation with Jonathan Vatner, author of The Bridesmaids Union.

ABOUT COFFEE, SHOPPING, M**der, LOVE:  Despite everything you know and value, Carlos Allende’s new novel Coffee, Shopping, M**der, Love will make you root for its bitter, spectacularly superficial, and highly immoral protagonists. The story is a savagely camp, relentlessly unsentimental, incisive account of our worst impulses and our current deranged political moment. It’s a brilliant, laugh-out-loud work of dark comedy.

Set in Los Angeles, a year before same-sex marriage became legal, the novel follows the misadventures of two gay men for whom it didn’t get better: Jignesh Amin, an overweight, angry Indian-American working as a bookkeeper, and Charlie Hayworth, a socially inept white guy from Leitchfield, Kentucky. After Jignesh murders the beautiful office intern because she insults his writing, and Charlie starts dating Jignesh because he wrongly believes he’s rich, the two men embark on a madcap journey that includes a few other deaths, a money-laundering scheme, a gay cruise, and an ass-backward trip to Los Cabos, Mexico.

Coffee, Shopping, M**der, Love will leave you cackling while also weeping at what shame does to the psyche, how social media demolishes the spirit, and how much fun it is to conjure abject moral decrepitude.

This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.

Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.

Also live-streaming on 

Safety protocol

In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19:

If you have any symptoms associated with COVID-19 in the days leading up to the event, we ask you to please stay home.

Please note that masks are required at all times inside The LGBT Community Center, where the Bureau is located.

Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work.

All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.

We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register.

Purchase (Red Hen Press, June 21, 2022, hardcover, $25.95) from the Bureau's online store (click on title).

Copies are also available at the Bureau's physical store and can be purchased at the event.

Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!

CARLOS ALLENDE is a media psychology scholar and a writer of fiction. He has written two previous novels: Cuadrillas y Contradanzas (CBH Books, 2008), a historical melodrama set during the War of Reform in Mexico, and Love, or the Witches of Windward Circle (Rare Bird, 2015), a horror farce set in Venice, California. Based on his research on narrative persuasion and audience engagement, he developed the course The Psychology of Compelling Storytelling, which he teaches in the Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension. He lives in Santa Monica with his husband.

JONATHAN VATNER is the author of THE BRIDESMAIDS UNION (St. Martin's Press, 2022) and CARNEGIE HILL (Thomas Dunne Books, 2019). His fiction has earned praise from People, Town & Country, The New York Post, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He is the managing editor of Hue, the magazine of the Fashion Institute of Technology, and teaches fiction writing at New York University and the Hudson Valley Writers Center.

Event Venue

Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 208 West 13th Street, New York, United States