Knopf VPs editor-at-large Gary Fisketjon and publicity director Nicholas Latimer chat with Joshua Furst as the party celebrating his first novel, The Sabotage Café, gets underway last Thursday night. Furst arrived early at the Hi-Fi Bar with fellow authors Dale Peck and Lisa Dierbeck, who had met earlier to discuss the manuscript to Dierbeck’s new novel. Calvin Baker dropped by soon after, having recently gotten back into town from the Mexican vacation we’d talked about back at his book party, and then Virginia Vitzthum came in, followed soon after by Nelly Reifler and Amanda Stern (whose Happy Ending reading series kicks off a new season Wednesday night).
Sarah’s more familiar with Furst, but I managed to waylay his agent, Richard Abate of Endeavor, and ask what made this novel so compelling for him. “I think Josh is one of the most innovative writers of his generation,” Abate told me as we waited for the bartender to notice us, “and he’s made an enormous leap from his short stories. But he’s not just innnovative in terms of form. He’s able to get into intimate, dark places in the human psyche that make readers uncomfortable but still yearn for more.”