After taking on the neurotic comedy of Jonathan Ames, HBO is moving on to the harder stuff: The network is planning to air a show written by Sam Lipsyte, author of acerbic, stylish, and deeply felt novels such as The Ask. The “offbeat comedy,” titled People City, will portray the misadventures of a 25-year-old man who is hired by a New York couple to care for their child.
In Elle, novelist Kate Christensen explains what it’s like to write from a man’s point of view.
BookExpo America Diary, Part One: It’s smaller (duh) and Apple wasn’t around. There are fewer clowns, Borat impersonators, and reality TV stars than in years past. Highlights: Colson Whitehead signing advance copies of his new zombie novel, Zone One. Deborah Baker signing her new book, The Convert, and seeing Emma Straub and Simon van Booy and realizing they’re just as cool in real life as everyone says they are on Twitter (ditto for Whitehead). Walking by a woman talking about how there used to be only male werewolves in fiction, and realizing that this woman was, in fact, Margaret Atwood. Lowlights: Despite a blogger’s pavilion and a continued emphasis on e-books, there was poor cell-phone service to be had in the inner depths of the Javits Center (but don’t take our word for it). And we heard about a lot of great new forthcoming indie titles, to wit: New books by Robert Walser (Berlin Stories, NYRB), Miranda July (It Chooses You, McSweeney’s), Sheila McClear (The Last of the Live Nude Girls, Soft Skull), and more.
Tonight’s New York to-do list: Fans of Georges Perec, take note: Anthology Film Archives will screen two films written and co-directed by the late French novelist. At 7pm, the theater will screen Serie noir (adapted from a Jim Thompson story), and at 9:30, Harry Mathews—a longtime friend of Perec’s—will introduce Perec’s Un homme qui dort (the English version was dubbed by Shelley Duval) . . . At McNally Jackson, Lynne Tillman and Paula Fox will read their fiction . . . And at 9:30 at the PowerHouse Arena, Oriana Small (aka Ashley Blue) will read from her brand-new book Girlvert, a clear-eyed and explicit account of her experiences in the porn industry.
