John Donatich
reads from
The Variations:
A Novel
This event includes a book signing
DateApr
12
Thursday
April 12, 2012 7:00 PM ET |
LocationHarvard Book Store
1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138 |
Tickets
This event is free; no tickets are required.
|
Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome Director of Yale University Press JOHN DONATICH for a reading of his first novel, The Variations.
The Variations revolves around the compelling character of Father Dominic, a priest who has lost his church, his mentor, and, most upsetting, his ability to pray. How can Father Dominic protect or guide his parish when everything he loves falls away? How can he counsel Dolores, a troubled teenager prone to emotional panic and spiritual monomania? Or James, a promising African American pianist, struggling to realize his artistic ambitions by bringing his own voice to a piece that has been played by the world's most brilliant pianists, Bach's Goldberg Variations.
Into this malaise comes Andrea, a sophisticated New York editor attracted at first by Dom's blog and then by the man himself. Dom's journey from the cloth into the secular world will offer carnal knowledge, but also something deeper, a more resistant knowledge as life fails to offer happiness or redemption. In prose both searching and muscular, The Variations has located the right metaphor for our spiritual crisis in this story of one man's spiritual disillusion and ache for self-knowledge.
"This book deserves quiet and respectful praise. I was very moved by it. Individual sentences are filled with precision and intelligence. I suppose it is, itself, a variation, in terms of its improvisations on an expected theme, the improbabilities recognized and realized, and its humane take on the world. What a surprising, beautiful book." —Ann Beattie, author of The New Yorker Stories
Walking from the Harvard Square T station: 2 minutes
As you exit the station, reverse your direction and walk east along Mass. Ave. in front of the Cambridge Savings Bank. Cross Dunster St. and proceed along Mass. Ave for three more blocks. You will pass Au Bon Pain, JP Licks, and TD Bank. Harvard Book Store is located at the corner of Mass. Ave. and Plympton St.
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