On this edition of ST, we speak with Kevin Brockmeier, the Little Rock-based, widely acclaimed fiction writer whose books include the novels "The Illumination" and "The Brief History of the Dead" as well as the story collections "Things That Fall from the Sky" and "The View from the Seventh Layer." His newest book, just out, is an autobiography called "A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip: A Memoir of Seventh Grade" --- and it's been praised by Entertainment Weekly as "a funny, poignant oddity.... There's something here for you as long as you remember being 12, having disloyal friends, and wondering when the opposite sex was going to discover how cool you were.... The prose is always a pleasure, and our little underdog hero is so likable that you're relieved just to be holding the book in your hands: It's proof that he turned out okay." Brockmeier will be reading from and signing copies of this book on Monday of next week (the 12th) at Enso Bar in downtown Tulsa; this free-to-the-public event is presented by Book Smart Tulsa, and it begins at 7pm. And as was noted further of this book, by a critic writing for Booklist: "In three acclaimed novels and two story collections, Brockmeier earned his reputation as a literary virtuoso attuned to the illusory facets of everyday life. His rollicking first memoir, centered on his formative year in the seventh grade, affirms his talents and explores their foundations.... In a hilariously vivid, novelistic chronicle of the mid-1980s, Brockmeier nails the awkward triumphs and life-affirming disasters of teenagedom, revealing the creative significance of what might otherwise seem banal."
"A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip: A Memoir of Seventh Grade"
