GET LUCKY

Jonathan Lethem‘s name buzzes in literary circles even when he doesn’t have a book out, so you can imagine how monumental it is when he does. Lucky Alan and Other Stories follows the same this-is-too-uncanny-to-be-reality-yet-it-is framework that he has mastered in his long career. One of the stories in the collection, cleverly titled “Their Back Pages,” is about characters from forgotten comic books stranded on a desert island. Though he has written nine novels, it is his grasp of the short-story form that stuns audiences over and over again. Don’t believe us? Google “The King of Sentences,” which was published in the New Yorker, and see for yourself. Powerhouse Arena requests that you RSVP on their website, and you should — there’s no place better to hear the Motherless Brooklyn author read than right there in the shadows of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

Thu., March 19, 7 p.m., 2015