Book signings this week include an introduction to a harrowing story of illegal immigrants trapped during a order crossing, as well as a couple of homegrown novels — one a detective book and the other a personal, and cynical, look at Evangelicals in America.
John Vaillant, The Jaguar's Children
BookBar
7 p.m. Tuesday, May 25
In Canadian author John Vaillant’s first work of fiction, Héctor, a Oaxacan man abandoned by coyotes in a sealed tanker truck with a group of immigrants during an illegal border crossing, finds hope in an American phone number in a friend’s cell phone. As his companions begin to die around him, both a personal story and a much larger one examining the tenuous nature of such border crossings unfold in a series of Héctor’s unanswered text messages.
J. L. Abramo, Circling the Runway
Broadway Book Mall
7 p.m. Thursday, May 28
303-744-2665
Local author and actor Joe Abramo will introduce a new Jake Diamond mystery, Circling the Runway, in an unusual way: With help from theatrical friends Sonny Wasinger and Tupper Cullum, he’ll host a staged reading of the Raymond Chandler-esque thriller at the Broadway Book Mall. The third in a series that began with Catching Water in a Net, winner of the St. Martin's Press/Private Eye Writers of America prize, Runway finds San Francisco P.I. Diamond on the trail of the killer of an assistant district attorney.
Josiah Hesse, Carnality: Dancing On Red Lake
Syntax Physic Opera
7 p.m. Friday, May 29
Local author Josiah Hesse will introduce Carnality: Dancing On Red Lake, the first installmant of a projected series of novels inspired by the American Evangelical movement that’s also the first imprint from local comedy maven Kayvan Khalatbari’s Sexpot Publishing, at Syntax Physic Opera. The evening includes a reading by Hesse, accompanied by musician Roger Green, and a live interview with Hesse by the Denver Post’s John Wenzel, as well as additional readings by such locals as poet and Suspect Press editor Ken Arkind; Andy Thomas, author and drummer for The Knew; and Aaron Collins, writer and A. Tom Collins frontman. After all that, you can dance the night away at Lipgloss, with spins from guest DJ Tyler Jacobson of Mile High Soul Club. Learn more at Hesse’s website or Sexpot Comedy online.
What's on the next page in Denver's literary world? Visit Westword's Literary Event listings for this week.