IN-PERSON: Live at Fort Greene
Thursday, April 21, 7:30 PM ET
Book Launch: Lisa Hsiao Chen presents Activities of Daily Living
In conversation with Eugene Lim

Greenlight is delighted to help launch the much-anticipated first novel by Lisa Hsiao Chen, Activities of Daily Living, with a live in-person reading, discussion, and celebration. Chen’s searching, sharply-observed debut probes the interconnection between work and life, loneliness and kinship, and the projects that occupy our time. In the off-hours from her day job, Alice—a Taiwanese immigrant in her thirties—struggles to create a project about the enigmatic downtown performance artist Tehching Hsieh and his monumental, yearlong 1980s performance pieces. Meanwhile, she becomes the caretaker for her aging stepfather, a Vietnam vet whose dream of making traditional Chinese furniture dissolved in alcoholism and dementia. As Alice roots deeper into Hsieh’s radical use of time and his mysterious disappearance from the art world, her project starts metabolizing events from her own life. She wanders from subway rides to street protests, loses touch with a friend, and tenderly observes her father’s slow decline. Moving between present-day and 1980s New York City, with detours to Silicon Valley and the Venice Biennale, this vivid debut announces Chen as an audacious new talent. Author and publisher Eugene Lim (Search History) joins Chen in conversation at our Fort Greene store for an evening tracing the folds between living and creating.

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Lisa Hsiao Chen photo credit: Hisayo Chen

Eugene Lim photo credit: Ning Li