40 South Portage Street
Renowned Vonnegut Scholar to Speak at Patterson Library’s Author Series
Christina Jarvis, Professor of English at SUNY Fredonia, will give a reading from her new book, “Lucky Mud and Other Foma,” on Tuesday, July 18, at 6 p.m. at the Patterson Library in Westfield, with a conversation and book signing to follow. The event is free and open to the public.
Although “Lucky Mud and Other Foma” primarily explores Kurt Vonnegut’s environmentalism and planetary citizenship, Jarvis will focus on the very early compositional history of “Slaughterhouse-Five,” Vonnegut’s famous 1969 novel about his experiences surviving the 1945 firebombing of Dresden.
Published last November by Seven Stories Press, “Lucky Mud and Other Foma” has received enthusiastic praise from other Vonnegut scholars and experts. “Christina Jarvis is the leading scholar on Vonnegut’s civic engagement, locally and globally,” wrote Julia Whitehead, founder and CEO of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library and author of “Breaking Down Vonnegut.” She added, “It is a delight to read her work and hear her speak.”
Dr. Jarvis’s book “has blown the lid off everything we thought we knew about Kurt Vonnegut,” wrote Tom Roston, author of “The Writer’s Crusade: Kurt Vonnegut and the Many Lives of Slaughterhouse-Five.” It tells the story of the origins and legacy of what Vonnegut understood as “planetary citizenship” and explores key roots, influences, literary techniques, and artistic expressions of his interest in environmental activism through his writing.
Roston adds, “From unprecedented research into Vonnegut’s childhood to nuanced readings of both Vonnegut’s most famous and more obscure writing, Jarvis demonstrates why she is one of the most insightful Vonnegut scholars working today. This book is deeply, giddily, and intellectually Vonnegutian.”
Ginger Strand, author of “The Brothers Vonnegut,” agrees, saying, “Christina Jarvis sweeps aside the dismissive view of Vonnegut as a fabulist obsessed with space aliens and rocket ships, and shows him as the environmentalist, social justice activist, and ‘planetary citizen’ he was from beginning to end – in both his life and his work.”
Describing the book as “prodigiously researched, informative, marvelous, [and] eye-opening” Suzanne McConnell, author of “Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style,” says, “’Lucky Mud’ is a timely, inspiring, wow of a book. I loved it.”
Additional information about “Lucky Mud and Other Foma” is available at: https://www.sevenstories.com/books/4452-lucky-mud-amp-other-foma