The End of the End of the World Word Cabaret - Three Local Authors Reading From New Books

Join the End of the End of the World Word Cabaret & The Green Arcade in a reading from three Bay Area authors reading from their books (two of them first novels).

Ananda Esteva's novel The Wanderings of Chela Coatlicue is the first installment of a trilogy of coming-of-age adventures that follows a young brazen musical prodigy in search of a sacred bass once owned by legendary blues musician Sugar Rivera. Filled with breathtaking action, border perils, magic and passion, this fantasy novel takes readers through numerous plot developments and twists that lead them to a variety of choices and outcomes, as Chela travels from the punk rock slums of Mexico City to the suburbs of Los Angeles. Unfolding in the present tense from the second-person point of view, events, actions and consequences hit the reader with immediacy, making this novel the ultimate exploration of border politics, indie music culture, and one young woman’s self-discovery in the mystery surrounding Rivera.

Adam Smyer's debut novel Knucklehead introduces the reader to Marcus Hayes, a black lawyer who regulates everyday bad behavior with short, sharp bursts of retribution, and “struggles to keep his cool in the personally and politically turbulent ’90s.” Like Smyer, the book has a wicked sense of humor, even as it gives the reader a tour of the dystopian Clinton years. Comparisons to James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Zora Neale Hurston are well earned.

Asked why he chose to set his book in the 1990's, Smyer says, "I think that the ’90s have been overlooked in a way. I think that on some level the prevailing narrative has become that everything was fine before 9/11. But everything was definitely not fine. We had militias and the Unabomber and Tim McVeigh and Columbine. The amount of hate and hysteria that we normalized back then laid the groundwork for what is happening today. It was fertile ground for storytelling."

Kate Jessica Raphael is the author of Murder Under the Bridge and Murder Under the Fig Tree (She Write Press). In the latter book, Hamas has taken power in Palestine, and the Israeli government is rounding up people considered threats. Palestinian policewoman Rania Bakara finds herself thrown in prison, though she has never been part of Hamas. Chloe flies in from San Francisco to free her friend – and rekindle her romance with Tina, a beautiful Palestinian Australian. The only way Rania can get out of jail is by agreeing to investigate the death of a young gay Palestinian in a village near her home.