Saturday, April 28, 2012

Talking Fiction, Talking Fact

I had a great experience recently at the Brooklyn Historical Society. By chance, I was on Twitter on a Sunday morning and one of the first tweets that came up in my home feed advertised the following event: Talking Fiction, Talking Fact: Colm Tóibín and Mick Moloney on Brooklyn.

I had been meaning to read Colm Toibin for a long time.  I knew that he had written a historical fiction piece about immigrants in Brooklyn (one of my favorite subjects!) and also that he had written The Master about Henry James (one of my favorite authors).  I hadn't gotten around to it yet, but here was Fate beckoning me on a Sunday morning.



I went to the event and it was really interesting.  Colm read from Brooklyn and answered questions. Mick Moloney played traditional Irish songs.  Colm signed my copy of the novel.  I was excited to share with him details about my family's immigration story (what little I know of it), but was cut off abruptly by two elderly women who jumped in front of me with the enthusiasm of groupies.  What could I do?  I've been raised to respect my elders.

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