Événement

Writers Bloc Presents Martin Amis with Mad Men's Matthew Weiner

At the Writers Guild Theater. 135 S Doheny Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90211. Parking available at adjacent lots.

Martin Amis. Labeled an iconic writer, one of the best of the postwar British authors. Sometimes his novels are bitingly funny and ironic, and some books are dark and unsettling. Whether comic or serious or both, we read them compulsively because, well, we can't stop. Money, for example, is one of the most era-defining books we can remember, a most hilarious screed on the depravity and excess of the 80s. The Rachel Papers, his first novel, makes us squirm (and laugh) as we recall and consider the indignities of adolescence. London Fields some of the most unforgettable characters in contemporary fiction. His books become literary events because they so successfully snap a photo of our current moment, and ratchet that moment up by a notch or two to deliver some of the most provocative literature around. Whether in Koba the Dread, his treatise on Josef Stalin or The Second Plane: Terrorism and Boredom, Amis personalizes his nonfiction that informs, surprises and often shocks the reader with his far-reaching knowledge and observation. His new novel, Lionel Asbo: State of England, is another wildly ironic look at money and its glorious impact on class, and specifically, on a guy named Lionel, and on his sweet nephew, Des. It's utterly, completely and wildly funny. And it too is a vivid snapshot that captures an essence of England now.

Who captures America better than Matthew Weiner. He created Mad Men, which has just finished its fifth season, a season that was magnificent, literary, epic. It was one of the best seasons in television. Not only is it visually stunning, but the story line is courageous and thrilling. The characters are fully drawn, the tension staggering, and the stakes for all of them immensely high. It can be wonderfully funny too. Matthew Weiner has created a television series that recreates a time and place in American mythology, and while he includes seminal moments in our shared history, he surrounds those events with characters who breathe life into what we saw, what we felt, and what we continue to grapple with. Weiner infuses the series with a profound exploration of how we understood and reacted to the earth shattering changes of the 60s.

For more information: www.writersblocpresents.com