ThoughtGallery.org > Darkly Comic: Fiona Maazel and Heidi Julavits

Darkly Comic: Fiona Maazel and Heidi Julavits

We’re thrilled to celebrate the publication of Fiona Maazel’s new novel, A Little More Human (Graywolf Press). Critically acclaimed author Heidi Julavits (The Vanishers, The Folded Clock) will join Maazel in a discussion about this dazzling tragicomedy.

About A Little More Human:

Meet Phil Snyder: new father, nursing assistant at a cutting-edge biotech facility on Staten Island, and all-around decent guy. Trouble is, his life is falling apart. His wife has betrayed him, his job involves experimental surgeries with strange side effects, and his father is hiding early-onset dementia. Phil also has a special talent he doesn’t want to publicize—he’s a mind reader and moonlights as Brainstorm, a costumed superhero. But when Phil wakes up from a blackout drunk and is confronted with photos that seem to show him assaulting an unknown woman, even superpowers won’t help him. Try as he might, Phil can’t remember that night, and so, haunted by the need to know, he mind-reads his way through the lab techs at work, adoring fans at Toy Polloi, and anyone else who gets in his way, in an attempt to determine whether he’s capable of such violence. A Little More Human, rife with layers of paranoia and conspiracy, questions how well we really know ourselves, showcasing Fiona Maazel at her tragicomic, freewheeling best.

Fiona Maazel is the author of the novels Last Last Chance (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008; Picador Paperback, 2009) and Woke Up Lonely (Graywolf, 2013). She is winner of the Bard Prize for Fiction and a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35″ honoree, which feels less potent now that she is 41. Her work has appeared in Anthem, Bomb, Book Forum, Boston Book Review, The Common, Conjunctions, Fence, Glamour, Harper’s, The Millions, Mississippi Review, N+1, The New York Times, The NY Times Sunday Book Review, Ploughshares, Salon, Selected Shorts, This American Life, Tin House, The Village Voice, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. She teaches at Princeton University and is the Director of Communications for Measures for Justice. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. A Little More Human (Graywolf) is her latest book.

Heidi Julavits is the author of four critically acclaimed novels (The Vanishers, The Uses of Enchantment, The Effect of Living Backwards, and The Mineral Palace), a memoir (The Folded Clock), and is co-editor, with Sheila Heti and Leanne Shapton, of the New York Times bestseller Women in Clothes. Her fiction has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, McSweeney’s, and The Best American Short Stories, among other places. She’s a founding editor of The Believer magazine and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives in Manhattan, where she teaches at Columbia University.











When: Thu., Apr. 13, 2017 at 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Where: The Center for Fiction
15 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, NY
212-755-6710
Price: Free
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We’re thrilled to celebrate the publication of Fiona Maazel’s new novel, A Little More Human (Graywolf Press). Critically acclaimed author Heidi Julavits (The Vanishers, The Folded Clock) will join Maazel in a discussion about this dazzling tragicomedy.

About A Little More Human:

Meet Phil Snyder: new father, nursing assistant at a cutting-edge biotech facility on Staten Island, and all-around decent guy. Trouble is, his life is falling apart. His wife has betrayed him, his job involves experimental surgeries with strange side effects, and his father is hiding early-onset dementia. Phil also has a special talent he doesn’t want to publicize—he’s a mind reader and moonlights as Brainstorm, a costumed superhero. But when Phil wakes up from a blackout drunk and is confronted with photos that seem to show him assaulting an unknown woman, even superpowers won’t help him. Try as he might, Phil can’t remember that night, and so, haunted by the need to know, he mind-reads his way through the lab techs at work, adoring fans at Toy Polloi, and anyone else who gets in his way, in an attempt to determine whether he’s capable of such violence. A Little More Human, rife with layers of paranoia and conspiracy, questions how well we really know ourselves, showcasing Fiona Maazel at her tragicomic, freewheeling best.

Fiona Maazel is the author of the novels Last Last Chance (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008; Picador Paperback, 2009) and Woke Up Lonely (Graywolf, 2013). She is winner of the Bard Prize for Fiction and a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35″ honoree, which feels less potent now that she is 41. Her work has appeared in Anthem, Bomb, Book Forum, Boston Book Review, The Common, Conjunctions, Fence, Glamour, Harper’s, The Millions, Mississippi Review, N+1, The New York Times, The NY Times Sunday Book Review, Ploughshares, Salon, Selected Shorts, This American Life, Tin House, The Village Voice, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. She teaches at Princeton University and is the Director of Communications for Measures for Justice. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. A Little More Human (Graywolf) is her latest book.

Heidi Julavits is the author of four critically acclaimed novels (The Vanishers, The Uses of Enchantment, The Effect of Living Backwards, and The Mineral Palace), a memoir (The Folded Clock), and is co-editor, with Sheila Heti and Leanne Shapton, of the New York Times bestseller Women in Clothes. Her fiction has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, McSweeney’s, and The Best American Short Stories, among other places. She’s a founding editor of The Believer magazine and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives in Manhattan, where she teaches at Columbia University.

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