April 29 | Reading by Jessica Hagedorn

By UCBerkeleyAAADS

On Friday, April 29, writer Jessica Hagedorn will read from her new work from noon to 2 at the Multicultural Student Center. More details to follow.

Jessica Hagedorn Toxicology

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Publicity Contact: Sonya Cheuse, 212.366.2078
sonya.cheuse@us.penguingroup.com

A novel about the collision of art, fame, money, love, desire and mortality from the acclaimed author of Dogeaters

Toxicology

a novel by

Jessica Hagedorn

Early Praise:

Hagedorn’s fiery latest… offers a razor-sharp, refreshingly unsentimental portrayal of New York artists–selfish, irresponsible, and brilliant–and the evolution of feminism. (Apr.) Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“…An eclectic mix of differing voices, dream sequences, interviews, and snippets of memoir, as well as straight narrative all overlaid with Hagedorn’s darkly humorous perspective. Her characters are complex and sympathetic, and each has a distinctive voice full of pain, longing, and love.”

Library Journal

“Hagedorn’s brilliant writerly eye sees far beneath surfaces; her voice transmutes what she sees into language so clear and frank and unafraid, it shocks the reader awake. The novel’s protagonists are a pair of fascinating, glamorous, formidable women, and their intertwining lives, addictions, and passions make for hypnotic reading. Toxicology is a book for grownups and a thing of beauty.”
Kate Christensen, author of Trouble and The Great Man

A movie star’s overdose provokes three generations of creative women to formally explode. Hagedorn lets the emotional consequences of loss and waste freely expand the parameters of her novel in order to accurately express the wounded heart at play with love, loyalty and making art. When hope is located in the past, and the future not imaginable, her story’s telling relies on freedom, risk and innovation. Funny, sad and without phony resolution, Toxicology just tells like it is.”
—Sarah Schulman, author of The Mere Future and People In Trouble

Jessica Hagedorn has received abundant praise for edgy, entertaining and exuberant novels that combine a strong narrative drive with a lyric sensibility in which pop culture, gossip, storytelling, and extravagant behavior thrive. In her new novel, TOXICOLOGY (Viking; On-Sale: April 18, 2011; ISBN: 978-0-670-02257-1; $25.95), Hagedorn takes the reader on a sexy, gritty, racy ride where love (or what passes for love) is deconstructed, as are desire and mortality.

In TOXICOLOGY, Hagedorn works with unforgettable contemporary characters in a landscape that stretches far beyond the Philippines homeland she is best known for writing about.  The novel is revolves around two women who are neighbors in Manhattan’s West Village—Mimi, a filmmaker whose only screen credit is a notorious low-budget “slasher” movie, and who is  on the prowl for inspiration and new material, and Eleanor, a reclusive, legendary writer of experimental erotic novels, who is close to eighty-years-old and addicted to cocaine and alcohol. Mimi and Eleanor’s worlds collide in unexpected ways as Eleanor grieves over the loss of her lover, the renowned painter Yvonne Wilder, and as Mimi confronts the challenges presented by the inexplicable vanishing of her drug-dealing boyfriend, Bobby. We also meet Mimi’s recently clean and rather out-of-it brother Carmelo, as well as her estranged and rebellious teenage daughter Violet. Casting an inexplicably dark cloud over everyone’s lives is the ghost of Agnes—an “illegal” and cousin of Mimi’s who might have been murdered by her New Jersey employers.

A bold, playful, and touching novel about the connection between creativity and self-destruction,  TOXICOLOGY marks the welcome return of an original and compelling voice in American fiction.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jessica Hagedorn, a novelist, poet, and playwright, was born and raised in the Philippines and moved to the United States in her teens. Her books include the novels Dogeaters (a finalist for the National Book Award and the recipient of an American Book Award) The Gangster of Love, and Dream Jungle (a New York Times Notable Book), and Danger and Beauty, a collection of selected poetry and short fiction. Hagedorn was the editor of the Asian American fiction anthology Charlie Chan is Dead. She lives in New York City.

TOXICOLOGY

Jessica Hagedorn ▪ Viking ▪ $25.95 ▪ 288 pages ▪ Hardcover

On-Sale Date:  April 18, 2011 ▪ ISBN:  978-0-670-02257-1

Please visit http://www.jessicahagedorn.net/

and

www.penguin.com

Penguin Group (USA) Inc. is the U.S. member of the internationally renowned Penguin Group.  Penguin Group (USA) is one of the leading U.S. adult and children’s trade book publishers, owning a wide range of imprints and trademarks, including Berkley Books, Dutton, Frederick Warne, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Grosset & Dunlap, New American Library, Penguin, Philomel, Riverhead Books and Viking, among others. The Penguin Group is part of Pearson plc, the international media company.