Joe Queenan

Sun., April 19, 1 p.m., free, Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine St., 215-567-4341, freelibrary.org/festival.

by Carolyn Wyman

	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Apr 14, 2009

reading

There's hardly a pop-culture phenomenon in America that hasn't felt the sting of author/critic Joe Queenan's acerbic wit — from Hollywood (Confessions of a Cineplex Heckler) to sports fanaticism (True Believers) to his fellow baby boomers (Balsamic Dreams). In his new memoir Closing Time (Viking), Queenan sobers up to reveal the root of his anger: an abusive alcoholic father whose erratic job history condemned Queenan to an East Falls housing project childhood. His experience of Philly was so unpretty and his struggle to get up and out so desperate, it's a wonder Queenan's agreed to come back to talk about it at this weekend's Free Library Festival. If organizers are smart, they'll put lots of scheduling distance between him and the author of Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World.

Flux Capacity
Positive Vision
Luminous Darwin
Jeanne Ruddy Dance
Canstruction
Skin Stories
The White Room
Kaleidoscope
More Matter, Less Art