Thursday, January 12, 7:30 PM
Alex Gilvarry discusses From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant with editor Liz van Hoose of Penguin Books

New York City native and former book editor Alex Gilvarry discusses his debut novel, From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant, a story of fashion, terrorism, and the American Dream, with his editor, Liz van Hoose, of Penguin Books. Boyet Hernandez is a small man with a big American dream when he arrives in New York in 2002. With dubious financing and visions of Fashion Week runways, he sets up shop in an old Brooklyn toothpick factory, pursuing his goals with monkish devotion (distractions of a voluptuous undergrad not withstanding). But mere weeks after a high-end retail order promises to catapult his label to the big time, there's a knock on the door in the middle of the night: the flamboyant ex-Catholic Boyet is brought to Gitmo, handed a Koran, and locked away indefinitely on suspicion of being linked to a terrorist plot. Now, from his 6' x 8' cell, Boyet prepares for the trial of his life with this intimate confession, even as his belief in American justice begins to erode.