Chicago at Katerina’s

Due to the hurricane, couldn’t get there in person, but thanks to Gina Frangello’s initiative and the technical prowess of her husband David, I was able to Skype in.  I’m told that in my image up on the projector, I had ghostly glowing reflections in my eyes.  On my own viewscreen, all I could see was a menu (that is, of the physical, restaurant variety).  Until the very end–when the laptop was moved and I suddenly saw a laughing crowd.  Everyone seemed to be having a good time–thanks for coming out, dark, laughing crowd, whoever you were!

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hurricane morning

On the weather map: a whirling vortex.  When it arrived: nothing but eye.

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Brooklyn, New York

What a warm and terrific audience.  We’re at the beautiful Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene (thanks, Alexis, for managing this great event).  Many friends here, and in the third row at the end, my parents.  Next to me and out of the frame: Susan Choi, who graced us with a breathtaking passage from her novel-in-progress.  Here she is with me at the bar afterward…

…wondering if it’s really such a good idea to be digging into this–yes–Luminarium cake!  Who knows what’s in it?  Here’s me and my editor Mark, succumbing to the effects:

And here’s Jay Reed, the knife-wielding lunatic who brought it, going mad from the hallucinogens his pastry chef friend baked into it:

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Brooklyn, NY

Wednesday, August 24, 2011, 7:30 PM

Reading and conversation w/Susan Choi

Greenlight Bookstore
686 Fulton St. (at S. Portland)
Brooklyn, NY 11217
(718) 246-0200

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Chicago launch

The suave man up front with the wine glass is Jeff Waxman, who together with Thomas Flynn (both of the Seminary Co-op) organized this classy event.  We’re in a wine store here, LUSH, in University Village near UIC, where I lurked as a grad student for quite some time.  Next to Jeff is my wonderful colleague at UIUC, Audrey Petty.  Hand on hip in front, my wife Olivia.  Warning: that guy in the red shirt stole six cases of wine and was last seen in Eugene, Oregon.  Three Zen men stand in back, otherwise keeping us in line.

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Luminarium review

“Days after finishing Alex Shakar’s Luminarium, I’m still stumbling around the house in a mixture of wonder and awe. His new novel considers how our perceptions of the world are manipulated and controlled. . . . Anyone hungry for a deeply philosophical novel that, nonetheless, maintains its humility will find here a story worth wrestling with. You know who you are: You left The Matrix and Inception dazzled but wishing for a little less computer-generated wizardry and a lot more articulation of the movies’ ideas (which also indicates that you should never become a Hollywood producer). In Luminarium those ideas — about the nature of reality and the interplay of technology and perception — are explored with great care and maturity. Rather than a trip back to your undergraduate bull sessions (cue the Moody Blues’ ‘Nights in White Satin’), Shakar has set his story against the background of personal and national grief. The result is a strikingly metaphysical novel that never dematerializes into misty cliches, a book to challenge the mystic and the doubter alike.”

–The Washington Post

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Chicago, IL

Tuesday, August 23, 2011, 6:00 PM

Luminarium LAUNCH PARTY at LUSH, hosted by Seminary Co-op.  $30 includes copy of book, wine and food.

LUSH (University Village)
1257 S. Halsted St.
Chicago, IL
(312) 758-1900

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Selected Essays

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Luminarium review

“Luminarium [is] the quintessential contemporary novel. While it’s become fashionable for many so-called literary authors to dabble in the genres, Shakar incorporates elements of science fiction without the Frankenstein scars. And the questions the book raises are the kind we expect from the social-realist novels with birds on their covers, imploring us with their importance. Luminarium is a beautifully written big-questions novel that never gets distracted by its own interrogation, nor seems intent on impressing itself. Here we encounter the cagey allure of the faith demanded by both new spirituality movements and technology. Shakar isn’t so much satirizing the search for faith as he is documenting how treacherous, self-serious and silly it can be. The plot and themes are interwoven seamlessly, even as the various characters fray at their edges.”

–Time Out Chicago (5 stars)

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Luminarium review

[Shakar’s] first novel, “The Savage Girl,” a scouring investigation into the rampant commercialization of the 1990s, earned him an impressive advance, followed by exalted critical praise. But when the book was released a week after 9/11, it was lost in the surge of grief, fear and rage. Now, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Shakar returns with an even more powerful and profound novel, marked by an involving and canny mix of metaphysics, morality, comedy, and romance. . . .  An intricately structured, imaginative, epistemological, and wildly eventful tale of illusion and longing, “Luminarium” fizzes with ideas, social concerns, and metaphoric splendor in its exploration of doubling in the twin towers, the two halves of the brain, mind and body, fact and belief, good and evil, life and death, aloneness and communion. Encompassing, caring, provocative, and funny, Shakar’s novel astutely dramatizes moral and spiritual dilemmas catalyzed by the frenetic post-9/11 cyber age, while love, as it always has, blossoms among the ruins.

–Chicago Tribune

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Luminarium review/interview

“Reading Alex Shakar’s new novel Luminarium is like running a marathon in a thunderstorm. It reads and flows with a certain exigency that won’t make you want to leave it for too long on your coffee table or on the floor space next to your bed. The novel follows Fred Brounian through various life troubles, girl troubles, technologically mind-blowing neuropsychological studies, and a personal quest to discover nothingness as a sort of self-actualization, all while struggling to keep alive the corporately-taken-over software company founded by he and his now-comatose twin brother. Luminarium is a crashing and rainy light-show that makes us vulnerable and scared, but also invigorated and, dare I say, hopeful.”

–Jonathan Aprea, BOMB

http://bombsite.com/issues/1000/articles/5955

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