Keith Gessen reading and book-signing at Main Street store

all the sad young literary men

Keith Gessen, All The Sad Young Literary Men

Talking Leaves…Books will host Keith Gessen, author of the just-released and much-praised fiction All the Sad Young Literary Men (Viking Press), as a late addition to our May schedule of readings. Mr. Gessen will read from and sign copies of the book on Saturday, May 10, at 7 pm at our Main Street store, 3158 Main Street in Buffalo. The event is free and open to the public—copies of the book will be available for purchase.

Keith Gessen makes his fiction debut with All the Sad Young Literary Men, a brave, honest, sharp-witted, not-so-typical tale of three intellectual young men and their circuitous paths through sex, love and betrayal, as well as the writing of books. Gessen charts the lives of Mark, Keith, and Sam as they over-process their college days, under-process relationships past and present, and pathetically as well as triumphantly struggle their way through a web of women who love them and loathe them, in search for a sense of maturity, responsibility and literary (or other) fame.

Newly divorced and heartbroken in his university town of Syracuse, Mark attempts to center his life around his graduate work on the Russian Revolution and ends up being seduced by internet dating and online porn. Sam’s on a mission to write “the first great Zionist epic” even though he couldn’t say a Hebrew word if you paid him, hasn’t yet made it to Israel, and is not a practicing Jew. Obsessive self-Googler and avid dater after a string of failed relationships, Sam learns what it feels like to be just another name on a list of sexual encounters. The more serious and sensitive Keith, who is thwarted by inherited notions of resilience and greatness, and by memories of his broken family, muddles his way into the arms of the selfless woman he meets in Brooklyn.

All the Sad Young Literary Men radiates with comedic warmth and biting honesty. It has earned the praise of Joyce Carol Oates in The New York Review of Books, and positive reviews in Book Forum and The New York Review of Books.

Keith Gessen was born in Russia and currently lives in Brooklyn. He was educated at Harvard and Syracuse. He is a founder of the literary/political magazine n+1 and translator of the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Voices from Chernobyl. His work has also appeared in the Dissent, the New Yorker, and the New York Review of Books.