Frank's Bruised Mandarin Orange
[clockwise from bottom left: CAConrad, Magdelena Zurawski, Aaron Kunin and Tom Orange]
Conrad, Maggie and Aaron were here in Cincinnati for the penultimate date of their Frank’s Bruised Mandarin tour (celebrating The Book of Frank, The Bruise andThe Mandarin, respectively); Tom saw them read in Cleveland the night before and came down for the reading at Dana Ward’s Cy Press HQ. The next day, they were bookshopping around UC and when I was finished teaching, I met them at Duttonhoffers (where we complained about the unnecessarily high prices within earshot of the owners) and chatted about Dallas Wiebe, Richard Brautigan and the Tom Clark-era Paris Review before grabbing a bite to eat.
This group shot was taken out front of a deconsecrated church, which is now (unfortunately) an Urban Outfitters, but let’s pretend otherwise. Two minutes later, we all went our separate ways. It was a nice change of pace to have so many literary visitors here at once —particularly Conrad, whose latest book is his best to date (though with two more coming out before year’s end, it might very well be supplanted), and who consistently puts on some of the most engaging readings I’ve ever seen.
