Risking Ridiculousness

Thursday night (Oct 28) at 7, please join us to hear Guy Maynard read from his debut novel, The Risk of Being Ridiculous. I wrote briefly about Guy and his book earlier -- Guy and I worked together at Aster Publishing in Eugene about a bazillion years ago (but we've both aged quite well, thank you!).

The Risk of Being Ridiculous tells the story of nineteen-year-old Ben Tucker, living in Boston in 1969. The novel takes you on a passionate, lyrical six-week ride through confrontation and confusion, courts and cops, parties and politics, school and the streets, Weathermen and women’s liberation, acid and activism, revolution and reaction. And, of course, Love—as through it all  Ben feverishly pursues the long-shot desire of his life: Sarah Stein

Guy has lived in Oregon since the early 1970s (living in Massachusetts and Illinois before moving here). He was lead singer in a teen rock and roll band, was active in the civil rights and anti–Vietnam War movements, lived on a commune in southern Oregon, worked as a carpenter, and was a member of a worker-owned construction company.

After receiving his degree in journalism from the University of Oregon in 1984, he was editor of a small community newspaper and then worked at the previously mentioned Aster Publishing Company, working on a number of trade magazines in such fields as liquid and gas chromatography and geographic information systems. Since 1995 he has been editor of Oregon Quarterly, the University of Oregon magazine. He also serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Oregon Humanities magazine. His essays and articles have appeared in several Northwest regional publications. Guy and his wife Shelley live in a 1930s-vintage house in the middle of Eugene. They have a grown son, Corey, who lives in Portland.

The book is published by Hellgate Press in Ashland. Started in 1997, Hellgate Press is named after the historic Hellgate Canyon on the Rogue River, which was the first river in the United States to be designated as a wild and scenic river: "We like to think that the books we publish reflect the rugged yet subtle nature of this incredible river canyon." 

Here's a blog post Guy wrote for Wordstock, in which he reveals his dilemma deciding what genre his book belongs to. Here is an article by Jamie Passaro for the Eugene Register-Guard, talking about Guy's new book, along with two other new books from Oregon publishers (one of which has a reading here next month). And here's a review by Ted Taylor for the Eugene Weekly.

Finally, a note on the book from one of our favorite writers and friends, John Daniel (author of Rogue River Journal and The Far Corner, among others): "Guy Maynard vividly evokes the passions and fevered tempo of those times [the 1960s]--the music, the weed, the hitchhiking, the fellowship, the idealism, the outrage, and the wildness in the streets--as the overwhelming need to do something, whether brave or foolish or both, ran headlong at the forces of civil order."

We hope you can join us for this sure-to-be-entertaining evening!