Chris Bram on “The Art of History”

Join us on Thursday, December 8th at 7pm for a discussion with Christopher Bram, author of The Art of History: Unlocking the Past in Fiction and Nonfiction. Joining him will be Brenda Wineapple.

One has to look no further than the audiences hungry for the narratives served up by “Downton Abbey” or “Wolf Hall “to know that the lure of the past is as seductive as ever. But incorporating historical events and figures into a shapely narrative is no simple task. The acclaimed novelist Christopher Bram examines how writers as disparate as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, David McCullough, Toni Morrison, Leo Tolstoy, and many others have employed history in their work.

Unique among the “Art Of” series, “The Art of History “engages with both fiction and narrative nonfiction to reveal varied strategies of incorporating and dramatizing historical detail. Bram challenges popular notions about historical narratives as he examines both successful and flawed passages to illustrate how authors from different genres treat subjects that loom large in American history, such as slavery and the Civil War. And he delves deep into the reasons why “War and Peace “endures as a classic of historical fiction. Bram’s keen insight and close reading of a wide array of authors make “The Art of History “an essential volume for any lover of historical narrative.

Christopher Bram is the author of nine novels, including Gods and Monsters, and one work of nonfiction, Eminent Outlaws. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. He lives in Greenwich Village and teaches at New York University.

Brenda Wineapple is the prizewinning author of several books, including White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a New York Times Notable Book. She lives in New York City.