Booksmith hosts Myla Godberg reading from her new novel Feast Your Eyes. With Myla in conversation is Daniel Handler - please join us for Myla's only Bay Area appearance!
Feast Your Eyes, framed as the catalogue notes from a photography show at the Museum of Modern Art, tells the life story of Lillian Preston: “America’s Worst Mother, America’s Bravest Mother, America’s Worst Photographer, or America’s Greatest Photographer, depending on who was talking.” After discovering photography as a teenager through her high school’s photo club, Lillian rejects her parents’ expectations of college and marriage and moves to New York City in 1955. When a small gallery exhibits partially nude photographs of Lillian and her daughter Samantha, Lillian is arrested, thrust into the national spotlight, and targeted with an obscenity charge. Mother and daughter’s sudden notoriety changes the course of both of their lives and especially Lillian’s career as she continues a life-long quest for artistic legitimacy and recognition.
Narrated by Samantha, Feast Your Eyes reads as a collection of Samantha’s memories, interviews with Lillian’s friends and lovers, and excerpts from Lillian’s journals and letters -- a collage of stories and impressions, together amounting to an astounding portrait of a mother and an artist dedicated, above all, to a vision of beauty, truth, and authenticity.
"A riveting portrait of an artist who happens to be a woman." – Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"Reading Myla Goldberg's Feast Your Eyes reminded me of other unlikely adventure stories, like Hillary's summit of the Himalayas, or Shackleton's return from Antarctica. Only here the human constraints are still more challenging: making art as a single mother in a twentieth century dominated, and distorted, by men. This is an unflinching, deeply moving portrait of the artist, and a bravura performance in and of itself. I loved this book." – Joshua Ferris, author of Then We Came to the End and To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
Myla Goldberg is the bestselling author of Feast Your Eyes, The False Friend, Wickett’s Remedy, and Bee Season, which was a New York Times Notable Book, winner of the Borders New Voices Prize, and a finalist for the Hemingway Foundation/PEN award, the NYPL Young Lions award, and the Barnes & Noble Discover award. It was adapted to film and widely translated. In addition to her novels, she has written an essay collection, a children’s book, and short stories that have appeared in Harper’s. She teaches in the fiction programs at Sarah Lawrence and NYU and has been known to sing and play accordion and banjo in the Brooklyn art-punk band The Walking Hellos. She was also the subject of a song by The Decemberists, “Song for Myla Goldberg.” She lives in Brooklyn with her husband Jason Little and their two daughters.
Daniel Handler is the author of the novels We Are Pirates, The Basic Eight,Watch Your Mouth, Adverbs, and Why We Broke Up, a 2012 Michael L. Printz Honor Book. He is responsible for many books for children, including the thirteen-volume sequence A Series of Unfortunate Events and the four-book series All the Wrong Questions. He is married to the illustrator Lisa Brown, and lives with her and their son in San Francisco.
This event is free and all ages. RSVP appreciated but not required.
If you'd like a signed copy of Feast Your Eyes, and/or any of Myla's books, order below and be sure to include your request in the special field.
