Novelist Paul Auster’s 22-year-old daughter Sophie (pictured, via) sang songs in New York last night at a benefit for PEN America’s Readers & Writers program. Book Bench was there, sketching the literary luminaries in the audience.
Here’s an excerpt: “Auster, who is twenty-two, is already at work on her second album and is slated to appear in two films next year. Her father, the novelist Paul Auster, was standing in the crowd as well, listening with one knee bent against the back of his seat. He looked unabashedly proud. Sophie, at moments, became more like a kid than a star, as though unaccustomed to the power of her voice. ‘This one is my, uh, Aretha Franklin song,’ she said of her last act, rolling her eyes and mussing her hair. Salman Rushdie, who was sitting across from Auster and his wife, Siri Hustvedt, tried to take a picture with his iPhone.”
Find out more about Auster’s music on her MySpace page.