A reading and book signing for Hendrix College professor Tyrone Jaeger, whose novella The Runaway Note was recently published by Shakespeare and Company, Toad Suck, will be part of Conway’s annual ArtsFest, which will run Sept. 21-29.
The reading will take place at Michelangelo’s rooftop in downtown Conway (1117 Oak St.) at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 27. The reading will be followed by a book signing, live music from Slings and Arrows and a poetry slam. These events are free and open to the public and appropriate for all ages. For more information visit www.artsfestconway.com or contact Mark Spitzer at (501) 450-3339.
Composed of fragmented pieces, The Runaway Note follows the dream logic of two star-crossed lovers as they re-venture their past lives. Resurrecting a dead boy and stealing the van of a mad colonel cast as both God and the Devil color this surreal romance.
“Someone told me that the experience of reading the book felt like trying to catch smoke with your hands: you can trap some of it, but as soon as you open your hands to inspect it, it vanishes,” Jaeger said. “I like this because one of the things the book goes after is the notion that all that we understand and desire is in constant flux. Thus, we are many selves at once. Like all runaway notes, this one is fueled by the competing desires to escape and to remain.”
The Runaway Note is the second book published by Shakespeare and Co., Toad Suck, an avant-garde small press in Central Arkansas.
“It’s one hell of a sexy book,” said Spitzer, the publisher and a professor of creative writing at UCA. “I wouldn’t have published it if it wasn’t. It’s exciting and imaginative and poetic, re-inventing prose as it goes.”
John Brandon, author of Arkansas (Grove Press, 2009), noted “The Runaway Note is a runaway dream, a dream that keeps breaking upon itself and somehow in the breaking, becomes more and more shapely and serendipitous . . . Jaeger’s folks are hyper-aware of their common density which is to become fossils.”
For more information, contact Spitzer at (501) 450-3339 or toadsuckreview@gmail.com.
