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Book Club Mon Oct 21 2013
City Lit Books Sends Author Chris L. Terry Off in Style
A full house turned up at Logan Square's City Lit Books Saturday night to hear author Chris L. Terry read from his new young adult novel, Zero Fade, (read our review here) and to bid him farewell on his last night in Chicago--Terry would board a plane to join his wife in Los Angeles the next morning as the couple relocates to California.
But for one last night Terry (who earned an MFA from Chicago's Columbia College) was a Chicago writer, and he entertained the local audience with a funny and poignant selection from his debut novel, as well as a new nonfiction piece about his own childhood, "Hair Metal Dreams."
After the reading Terry was joined by artist Ezra Clayton Daniels, the cover designer of Zero Fade, for a Q&A with audience members. "We found we had a lot in common," Terry said of Daniels. Both men grew up in the same time period and are from mixed-race families. They also found they shared an affection for '80s black cinema and "wanted to bring that aesthetic back up" in the design for Zero Fade, said Terry.
Zero Fade (published by Chicago's Curbside Slendor), set in 90s Richmond, Virginia, tells the story of 13-year old Kevin Phifer, a black seventh-grader dealing with an uncle coming out of the closet, bullies, girls, and his mother's love life. While not autobiographical, Terry said the book is "rooted in his own experiences" as a child.
The event was in keeping with City Lit Books' commitment to "sharing great literature directly from the author with the community," said the bookstore's owner Teresa Kirschbraun. "Curbside Splendor are our neighbors," said Kirschbraun of the book's up-and-coming publisher. "The collaboration with them is a natural."