Chris Messer will be reading at The Difficult to Brunch Reading Marathon at Study Hall Gowanus on Saturday, May 21.
How is your spring going?
I bought a bike and my life in the city has improved roughly 1000%. Also, I just read The Argonautica for the first time, which is now one of my favorite things in the world.
What have you worked on in the past year that you're most happy with?
Last year I finished the first draft of a novel, but felt like I needed to take a long break from it before I could edit it properly. I try to write as intuitively as possible and so I usually need a lot of distance to make any sense of it, otherwise it gathers this vague, immutable musicality. It's sort of a curse breaking. I've been working on short stories ever since, but I returned to it recently and was pleasantly surprised. It's about divorce, memory, and Dante. Working title is All Hell.
What’s your favorite brunch spot?
My favorite brunch spot is the best brunch place in all of Brooklyn (maybe America? Americas?) but it's tiny, tiny, tiny, so I'm always cautious about telling people about it. It's a traditional Japanese breakfast place off of the Lorimer L and it's incredible, all of it, everything. Okay fine, it's called Okonomi. Rice sprinkled with bonito flakes topped with an onsen egg and uni is just, the perfect thing to wake up with, it's delicious and doesn't make you feel like you're going to die like most brunch items.
What can people expect from your reading?
The forth pocket of the eighth circle of hell, where sorcerers, astrologers, and false prophets have their heads turned around for trying to predict the future.