QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS

Two of the year’s best books, live

Comments (0) By Zach Baron Tuesday, Aug 12 2008

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Don’t attend this if you’re anything but fascinated with the lives of people in their twenties. Locals Keith Gessen and Charles Bock named their books All the Sad Young Literary Men and Beautiful Children, respectively, but either might have settled on the title to n+1’s 2007 Monday-morning-quarterbacking exercise, What We Should Have Known. Not coincidentally, the burgeoning lit mag (which Gessen helped found in 2004) is the beneficiary of tonight’s event, so expect a certain slant—one that incorporates both Literary Men’s exhaustive self-recrimination and Beautiful Children’s gawking interest in alienated young people, but leaves plenty of room for jokes, too. Best-case scenario: You walk out of the Bowery Poetry Club with a newfound sense of purpose. Worst-case scenario: You emerge feeling like you’ve just endured a two-hour replay of the how-do-you-like-them-apples? scene in Good Will Hunting. Only one way to find out.
Tue., Aug. 19, 6 p.m., 2008