MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

Matthew Gallaway, once the singer-guitarist for ’90s indie-pop band Saturnine, has now taken to novel writing—but don’t think he’s left out the music. His debut, The Metropolis Case, follows across centuries four characters whose lives are mysteriously intertwined by the strange history behind Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde. For readers of the book, being music-savvy will likely help as Gallaway references the Smiths (one character posits Wagner’s opera is a precursor to Morrissey’s melancholy music), Kate Bush, My Bloody Valentine, Velvet Underground, Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Puccini, and Mozart, to name just a few. Appropriately, pop-music critic of The New Yorker Sasha Frere-Jones will lead tonight’s discussion with the author.

Wed., Jan. 19, 7 p.m., 2011