Stephen Policoff presents DANGEROUS BLUES with Caroline Leavitt

P&T Knitwear is pleased to welcome Stephen Policoff to celebrate the release of his third novel Dangerous Blues: an exploration of a dark yet comic storm of family relationships laced with a buzz of the supernatural, where the fleeting light of the present must constantly contend with the shadows of the past. Stephen Policoff will be in conversation with author Caroline Leavitt.

Paul Brickner and his 12-year-old daughter Spring are subletting an apartment in New York City. They came to escape the sorrow of their empty house in upstate New York after Nadia, Paul’s wife and Spring’s mother, dies.

Spring quickly takes to her new Manhattan middle school life, including making a new friend, Irina. Through that connection, Paul meets Irina’s mother, Tara White, a blues singer, and perhaps just the spark Paul has been missing.

But Paul begins to fear that he is being haunted by Nadia, who appears to him in fleeting images. Is he imagining it, or is she real? Tara, who grew up in the inscrutable New England cult known as the Dream People, is haunted, too, hounded by her very real brothers to return to the family, and to give back the magical object—a shamanic Tibetan vessel—which they claim she stole from them.

Paul’s cousin Hank, a disreputable art dealer, becomes obsessed with this object. Meanwhile, Paul’s father-in-law, an expert on occult lore, tries to steer Paul toward resolution with Nadia’s ghost.

Driven by Paul’s new circle of odd and free spirited iconoclasts, Dangerous Blues asks the question: when do you let go, and what are you willing to let go of?

• This is a free in-store event with limited amphitheater-style seating

• All guests must be vaccinated to attend, and must provide proof of vaccination in order to enter event. We encourage all guests to wear masks.

• The talk will be followed by a book signing. Books signed at P&T Knitwear events must be purchased from P&T Knitwear. If you would like a signed copy and cannot attend the event, we're happy to take your pre-order. We ship most places!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

is the author of Beautiful Somewhere Else, which won the James Jones Award, and was published by Carroll & Graf in 2004. His 2nd novel, , won the Dzanc Award, and was published by Dzanc Books in 2014. He was writer-in-residence at Medicine Show Theater Ensemble, with whom he wrote Shipping Out, The Mummer’s Play, Ubu Rides Again, and Bound to Rise, which won an Obie. He was also a freelance writer for Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal, New Age Journal, and many other publications. He helped create the Center for Creative Youth, based at Wesleyan University, and has taught writing at CUNY, Wesleyan, and Yale. He is currently Clinical Professor of Writing in Global Liberal Studies at NYU, where he has taught since 1987.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

is the New York Times bestselling author of 12 novels, including With or Without You, and . A New York Foundation of the Arts Fellow and longlisted for the Maine Readers Prize, she is also a finalist in the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, a book critic for People Magazine, a blogger/columnist for Psychology Today, and the co-founder of A Mighty Blaze, which Zoom interviews authors and bookstores. Her work has appeared in "Modern Love" in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Salon, The Millions, LitHub, and more.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

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