A neighborhood book reading with a nearby neighbor. Author and blogger Ed Hamilton will read from his new book, Lords of the Schoolyard, on Thursday, January 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the nearby Jefferson Market Library.
Two years ago, Hamilton, known for his chronicling at Hotel Chelsea Blog, released his second book The Chintz Age and WSP Blog wrote at the time:
Ed Hamilton chronicled – from the inside – the struggles between existing long-time residents and management at the Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog, started in 2005. He has also written about neighborhood gentrification, including this great piece about “The High Line Giveaway.” The blog is sporadically updated currently but Hamilton says “that can change at any time.”
That doesn’t mean the long-time Chelsea Hotel resident has been idle. In 2007, Hamilton released the well-received book, Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living with Artists and Outlaws in New York’s Rebel Mecca.
Recently, the author and blogger turned his focus to The Chintz Age, the title of his new book, where “Everything is cheaper and chintzier than in the past, from consumer products to culture itself.”
From Jefferson Market Library about the reading:
Author Ed Hamilton (Legends of the Chelsea Hotel and The Chintz Age) will read from his debut novel, Lords of the Schoolyard. Stark, brutal, at times darkly humorous, and written in a powerfully pared-down style, Hamilton’s story is told from the point of view of the class bullies. The effect is exquisitely uncomfortable, even shocking, and captures with unforgettable force the anomie and amoralism of the adolescent mind, as well as the fundamental, sorrowful human innocence that lies beneath it. This harrowing immersion into the inner reality of a little boy who chooses victimization over victimhood casts an all-too-timely light on contemporary society in 2017.
Location: 425 Avenue of the Americas, Manhattan, first floor Willa Cather Community Room at the Jefferson Market Library. All events are free and open to the public.
Link: https://www.nypl.org/events/
A recent interview at The Brooklyn Rail with Ed Hamilton.