KGB Bar

Beverly Gologorsky will be reading from her novel, The Things We Do to Make It Home. First published in 1991, the novel became an instant classic with its heartfelt rendering of the lives of Vietnam vets’ families. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of this ground-breaking novel, Seven Stories Press has reissued it in a new edition. A longtime activist, she has written for the New York Times, the Nation, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and her essays are included in widely read anthologies on war and friendship. The Things We Do to Make It Home was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a Los Angeles Times Best Fiction selection, and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award finalist.

Helen Benedict will read from her new novel, The Edge of Eden (Soho). “Benedict’s portrait of the generation of British parents that came of age during World War II is smart, original and unflinching.” (Paula Sharp) Benedict will also speak about her non-fiction book, The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq (Beacon, 2009). Published to critical acclaim, it tells the tales of women soldiers and the harrowing violence against them at the hands of their male “comrades.” Benedict’s articles are widely published, and her work on women soldiers won the 2008 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. Her novels have been listed as best books of the year by The Los Angeles Times and the New York and Chicago public libraries. She is a professor of journalism at Columbia University.

Nora Eisenberg will read from her new novel, When You Come Home (Curbstone), which explores an untouched topic in American fiction—the tragic aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War and the profound illness that followed almost a third of the troops home. As it tracks the lives of veterans and their families, the novel uncovers the buried truth of America’s favorite war and the hollowness of victory. The novel was a Grub Street Fiction Prize finalist; Eisenberg’s first novel The War at Home, (2002) was a Washington Post Rave Book of the Year and her second novel, Just The Way You Want Me (2003) received ForeWord Magazine’s Gold Prize in Fiction. Her short stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in such places as The Partisan Review, The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, Tikkun, Alternet, and the Guardian UK. She directs the City University’s mentoring program for emerging scholars.