[Libri] event of interest

[der Geist, der stets verneint]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE!

The Consequences of Apathy:
A reading from Visa for Avalon by Bryher

For more information, please contact Jan Freeman at 413.628.0051,
info at parispress.org

WHO?

lê thi diem thúy, Guggenheim recipient and author of The Gangster We  
Are All
Looking For.

Bill Dwight, three-term Northampton City Councilman, Pleasant Street  
Video
employee, and former
host of The Big Breakfast on 93.1 FM.

Bill Newman, Northampton attorney and director of the Western  
Massachusetts
office of the ACLU.

Jan Freeman, executive director of Ashfield's Paris Press, and author of
Hyena and Simon Says.

R. Allison Ryan, Northampton neurologist and photographer (cover
photographer of Avalon).

Elizabeth Lloyd-Kimbrel of Mount Holyoke College, mediaevalist with a
special interest in Arthurian legend, freelance writer and editor.

WHAT?

Paris Press director Jan Freeman will introduce Visa for Avalon to the
audience and offer background information about the long-neglected  
author,
Bryher. Event participants will then read passages from Visa for Avalon  
and
offer their comments about the novel and the political and social  
message of
the allegory. R. Allison Ryan will speak briefly about the process of  
taking
the photograph that is on the cover of the novel (shot from a hot-air
balloon above the Deerfield Valley) and adapting the photograph for the
cover of Avalon.
     This event is funded in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

WHEN?                               WHERE?

Sunday, November 14, 2004           Stoddard Hall, Smith College
3:00 p.m.                           23 Elm Street, next to St. Mary's  
Church
Free                                Northampton, MA

"In these jittery times when questions of national security dominate,  
Paris
Press has decided the moment is right for a rediscovery of a political
allegory called Visa for Avalon. . . . Bryher's corpus and life story  
are
worth bringing to light.

"Visa for Avalon is a short allegory about the devastating cost of  
political
apathy. . . . [M]any political allegories feel static; Orwell's Animal  
Farm
and Huxley's Brave New World come to mind. . . . But Visa for Avalon is  
a
bit of a nail-biter. It's set in a no-name country that looks a lot like
England, where a totalitarian movement claiming to be working for the
betterment of the common citizenry is about to sweep away individual  
rights.
. . . Overcoming roadblocks, mobs, sadistic bureaucrats and forces of
nature, her characters push forward to Avalon, where society perhaps is  
more
enlightened
"The indeterminacy of Bryher's ending is one of the subtler aspects of  
this
lively story.  As someone who helped refugees escape Hitler, Bryher
certainly knew that there's a time when it's wiser to flee into the
unfamiliar than to stand and fight a known evil.  But Visa for Avalon is
certain about one thing: There's never a time to stop thinking, stop
questioning."

                                     < Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh  
Air"


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