hooves on the turf

Myla Goldberg

Matt Asbhy writes: The KGB bar is an all wooden, old-style East Village haunt, painted completely red and sporting portraits of Russian cultural figures like Lenin. It has long been the venue of choice for the reading series that benefits Behind the Book, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting literacy and reading enjoyment with low-income kids throughout New York City.

More after the jump

We got there early because the relatively small reading space the KGB offers usually fills quickly. But, as it turns out, the bar doesn’t actually open until 7, when the event was to begin. “I’m sure they’ll let you in,” someone commented to Myla Goldberg, but she waited with the rest of us while Jo Umans, director of Behind the Book, bustled about to speed things along.

Jo Umans (right)

Umans hosted the event, allowing the room enough time to grab a drink and converse before taking the podium to begin the reading. She noted with playful bitterness that New York magazine had mentioned the prestigious readers of the night, Rick Moody and Myla Goldberg, but had failed to make any reference to Behind the Book. She added, “I don’t recommend using the ladies room, from my own personal experience.� The first reader was Moody.

Rick Moody

The incredible passage he read from his newest book, The Diviners, could have been called, for the sake of this corny joke, “the journey of a brick.â€? Moody sets his narration in the mind of a female protagonist suffering some form of memory loss as a result of being hit by a brick, a brick possibly made in Utica or in Asia and definitely by Asians. The woman is rediscovering the world around her, and in some instances, relearning basic schema with a heightened sense of awareness. Moody explores all the possibilities in an imaginative and compelling narration. At one point, he broke the spell of his reading and said, “Fuck. Completely fucked up the grammar here,â€? (much as I’ll be saying after I upload this), which brought to mind a comment from Margaret Atwood who said that one of the things that happens to her when she reads is she notices grammatical points she should have fought harder for with the editor, a comma or something similar.

Rick Moody

After an intermission of drinks and the ladies’ room for whomever dared, Jo Umans discussed some of what Behind the Book has done and hopes to accomplish. Other members of Behind the book, including Denise Bell, the director of development, passed around evelopes for donations. From these, they conducted a raffle for the two books read that evening. The envelope provided nice privacy in which one could donate as much or as little as he or she wished, unlike a collection basket at church where other parishioners condemned you for throwing change, but in another way, the envelope donation is similar to the church collection basket in that God would know the truth of what you gave.

Myla Goldberg

Next was the delightful Myla Goldberg. She read from her novel The Wickets’ Remedy, a portion that followed the female protagonist, Lydia, into her position as a nurse at an island running tests to find a cure for the 1918 flu. Myla was a playful, upbeat reader, taking on different voices for each of her characters. Her passage detailed some of the horrifically vulgar tests they performed to learn more about how the flu was contracted and such. Clearly, and as she herself stated, the novel was intensely researched but the narrative was never bogged down by meaningless information. Goldberg’s book seemed slightly more fitting for young adult readers but no less engaging to adults.

Rick Moody and Myla Goldberg
Behind the Book at KGB
November 9th, 2006