Michael Cunningham "Day" in Conv. w/ Ben Shattuck "The History of Sound

East End Books Ptown presents: Michael Cunningham "Day" in Conv. w/ Ben Shattuck "The History of Sound: Stories" 8/23 at 6pm - Offsite Event at The Fine Arts Work Center - 24 Pearl Street

Michael Cunningham "Day" in Conv. w/ Ben Shattuck "The History of Sound Tickets, Fri, Aug 23, 2024 at 6:00 PM | Eventbrite This special event will be held at the historic Fine Arts Work Center with our Partners @FAWC.

Day

"April 5th, 2019: In a cozy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. Dan and Isabel, troubled husband and wife, are both a little bit in love with Isabel's younger brother, Robbie. Robbie, wayward soul of the family, who still lives in the attic loft; Robbie, who, trying to get over his most recent boyfriend, has created a glamorous avatar online; Robbie, who now has to move out of the house--and whose departure threatens to break the family apart. And then there is Nathan, age ten, taking his first uncertain steps toward independence, while Violet, five, does her best not to notice the growing rift between her parents. April 5th, 2020: As the world goes into lockdown, the brownstone is feeling more like a Pr*son. Violet is terrified of leaving the windows open, obsessed with keeping her family safe. Isabel and Dan communicate mostly in veiled jabs and frustrated sighs. And beloved Robbie is stranded in Iceland, alone in a mountain cabin with nothing but his thoughts--and his secret Instagram life--for company. April 5th, 2021: Emerging from the worst of the crisis, the family reckons with a new, very different reality--with what they've learned, what they've lost, and how they might go on"--

Michael Cunningham is a novelist, screenwriter, and educator. His novel The Hours received the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1999. He has taught at Columbia University and Brooklyn College. He is currently a professor in the practice at Yale University.

The History of Sound

"A stunning collection of interconnected stories, set mostly in New England, exploring how the past is often misunderstood and how history, family, heartache, and desire can echo over centuries In twelve luminous stories set across three centuries, The History of Sound examines the unexpected ways the past returns to us and how love and loss are entwined and transformed over generations. In Ben Shattuck's ingenious collection, each story has a companion story, which contains a revelation about the previous, paired story. Mysteries are revealed, history is refracted, and deep emotional connections are woven between characters and families. The haunting title story recalls the journey of two men who meet around a piano in a smoky, basement bar only to spend a summer walking the Maine woods collecting folk songs in the shadow of the first World War, forever marked by the odyssey. Decades later, a woman discovers the wax cylinders recorded that fateful summer while cleaning out her new house in Maine. Shattuck's inventive, exquisite stories transport readers from colonial Nantucket to the woods of New Hampshire-into a landscape both enduring and unmistakably modern. Memories, artifacts, paintings, and journals resurface in surprising and poignant ways among evocative beaches, forests, and orchards, revealing the secrets, misunderstandings, and love that linger across centuries. Written with breathtaking humanity and humor, The History of Sound is a love letter to New England, a radiant conversation between past and present, and a moving meditation on the abiding search for home"--

Ben Shattuck is the author of Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau, which was a New Yorker Best Book of 2022, a Wall Street Journal Best Book of Spring, a New York Times Best Book of Summer, a New England Indie Bestseller, and was nominated for the Massachusetts Book Award. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and winner of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and a Pushcart Prize. He lives with his wife and daughter on the coast of Massachusetts, where he owns and runs the oldest general store in America, built in 1793. He is also the director and founder of the Cuttyhunk Island Writers' Residency.

Event date:Friday, August 23, 2024 - 6:00pm to 7:00pmEvent address:24 Pearl StreetProvincetown, MA 02657

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Historic District, 24 Pearl Street, Provincetown, United States