Gotham Book Club: Happiness and Love, by Zoe Dubno

P&T Knitwear is please to welcome you to our in-house reading group, the Gotham Book Club — meeting once a month to discuss our favorite fiction & nonfiction about New York City.

This month, we'll be reading & discussing , by Zoe Dubno: a piercing debut novel about brazen materialism, self-obsession, and the empty careerism of so-called cultural elites, perfect"for lovers of Thomas Bernhard, art over theory, and anyone who has ever wondered 'What the hell am I doing here?'" (Melissa Broder, author of Death Valley)

Years after escaping New York and the center of its artistic world — a group of self-important, depraved, and unscrupulous artists, curators, and hangers-on — the narrator of is back in town. Wandering around the Lower East Side, thinking about the recent death of her former best friend, Rebecca, she runs into Eugene, one half of the artist-curator couple at the heart of her old social set, who invites her to a dinner in honor of a young, newly famous actress.

As the guests sip their natural wine and await the actress’s arrival, the narrator silently, systematically, and mercilessly eviscerates them — their manners, their relationships, their delusions and failures, and the complete moral poverty that brings them here, to Nicole and Eugene’s loft on the Bowery — from her perch on the corner seat of a white sofa. When the guest of honor finally does arrive, she sets in motion a disastrous end to the evening, laying bare the depravity and decadence of the hosts’ empty little lives — a hollowness that the narrator herself knows all too well.

• This is a ticketed in-store event with limited amphitheater-style seating. Check-in starts at 6:30pm, with the discussion beginning at 7pm.
• Cost of a $5 general admission ticket can be applied towards your purchase of next month's book club pick or any product in our café the night of the book club meeting.
• If you would like a copy & cannot attend the event, we're happy to take your pre-order for this month's book or next. We ship most places!

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

P&T Knitwear Books & Podcasts, 180 Orchard Street, New York, United States