Chaya Bhuvaneswar, Jason Ockert, and Jeff Parker: Proper Imposters

“This brilliantly imagined tale of thorny friendship between two master storytellers is unlike anything I have ever read. A surreal road story brimming with metaphysical horrors and marvels, Jeff Parker’s G v. P gives us a darkly funny and deeply moving meditation on life, death, and art that you’ll never forget.”—Mona Awad, author of Bunny

In Proper Imposters, four contemporary authors explore the vices and virtues of deception and how it manifests in ways personal, psychological, propulsive, and profound. An accountant at a pencil manufacturing company investigates a series of ominous events behind the facade of the mysterious company where he works; from their deathbeds, fictionalized versions of Nikolai Gogol and Edgar Allen Poe look back on their lives and remember an epic, transformational, and ahistorical road trip they took together as young men; a young woman is startled into action trying to execute “a simple plan” of escape involving cash, a sleep-over by her college roommate and the bold seduction of a boy she has decided to lose her virginity to; and, a reclusive night-shift worker tries a daring weight-loss experiment only to find himself pursued by a stalker no one else can see. Montiel Figueiras, Parker, Bhuvaneswar, and Ockert are devotees and virtuosos of the form, and each novella is lyrically rich in its prose and swift in its plotting. Together, the novellas startle with the consequences of seeing and being seen.

Chaya Bhuvaneswar is a practicing physician, writer and PEN /American Robert W. Bingham Debut Fiction award finalist for her story collection White Dancing Elephants: Stories, which was also selected as a Kirkus Reviews Best Debut Fiction and Best Short Story Collection and appeared on “best of” lists for Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Vogue India, and Entertainment Weekly.

Jason Ockert is the author of the novel Wasp Box and three collections of short stories: Shadowselves, Neighbors of Nothing, and Rabbit Punches. His fiction has appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, Granta, Oxford American, One Story, and McSweeney’s.

Jeff Parker is the author of several books including Where Bears Roam the Streets: A Russian Journal, the novel Ovenman, and the short story collection The Taste of Penny. He teaches in the MFA Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and he is the Co-Founder and Director of the DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal.

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EVENT ACCESSIBILITY

This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email us at [email protected] as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs!

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