Literati have a nip with their authors
Four Stories: Readings plus
Are you one of the Cambridge literati who have been clamoring for a local event that pairs alcohol with alliteration, syntax and skewered meats, bourbon with Balzac?
If so, take a look at Four Stories, a new monthly literary and culture series that aims to bring Boston's nightllife and arts communities together.
The event is the brainchild of Tracy Slater, a Cambridge-based freelance writer and part-time teacher who says her primary inspiration was simply to try to have a little fun by infusing the normally stuffy, stolid atmosphere found at many bookstore or library readings with something with a bit more kick.
''Four Stories is my baby. More than anything else, I just do it for fun," Slater said. ''Boston has so many great authors, not to mention a great nightlife culture. I've always thought it would be fun to try and bring the two together in an atmosphere that was more laid back and relaxed than is typical for a 'literary' event. I want the experience to feel like a 19th-century salon, only 150 years later -- same socializing, same witty banter . . . but no corsets."
Four Stories' primary venue, the Enormous Room in Central Square, goes a long way toward fostering the series' bohemian, laissez-faire esthetic.
Audience members can lounge comfortably atop plush couches and pillow-like ottomans arranged around the upscale lounge's one cavernous, dimly lit room, where a small stage and simple wooden stool stand in the far corner ready to receive the night's authors, as energetic young servers nimbly maneuver their way among the crowd, hefting trays loaded with sumptuous foods and a wide assortment of drinks.
That is, at least until the authors take the stage. Then everybody nestles in their seats to listen.
''It's nice to be read and catered to after a hard day's work," said Belmont's Carrie Roberts, a frequent Four Stories attendee, as she loafed on a brown suede sofa sipping a glass of red wine.
''Great authors, great food, a fun ambience, wine. I mean, what's not to like about the whole thing, right?"
Slater started Four Stories last September, drawing inspiration from a similar storytelling event known as The Moth, which poet and novelist George Dawes Green began in New York City in the late '90s, and, from the series' inception, she was amazed at the turnout and, more importantly, the audience response.
''So far every Four Stories event has managed to draw an overflow crowd of 60 to 100 people, even the first one. They've had to turn people away a few times. Which, for a reading series, is almost an unheard of occurrence," Slater said.
''This is the type of thing that I think a lot of people in the Boston area have been hungry for for quite some time now. I think it's a good mix of intellectual, with not-too-intellectual, and a whole lot more fun than going to a bookstore to hear an author read . . . plus, I suppose, the alcohol helps, too."
Each Four Stories event, named after the number of authors to expect each evening, is structured around a unifying theme. Last Monday's theme was, ''Down and Out in Chestnut Hill: Stories of Suburban Angst."
The readers were Daphne Kalotay, author of ''Calamity and Other Stories" and a writing teacher at Boston University; Mike Rosovsky, who teaches creative writing at Emerson College and is the cofounder of the semi-annual literary journal ''Post Road"; Lauren Slater (older sister of Tracy), author of five books, including ''Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the 20th Century," and editor of the 2006 edition of ''Best American Essays"; and Susan Orlean, staff writer for The New Yorker and author of the New York Times bestseller ''The Orchid Thief" and ''The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters With Extraordinary People."
Among the crowd at last Monday's jam-packed event was Karen Wulf, executive director of PEN New England, who said she was lured there by the amount of buzz Four Stories has been accumulating on the Boston literary scene.
Afterward, Wulf not only hailed the night's proceedings as an unparalleled success, as well as a great showcase for up-and-coming writers, she also singled out Slater's efforts in striving to bring the series to life in the first place.
''Tracy is single-handedly reviving the notion of the salon," Wulf said.
''Everybody knows about Four Stories, everybody raves about Four Stories, and Four Stories is fast becoming the place to be on the Boston area art scene. It's filling a vacuum that sorely needs to be filled in this city at the moment."
Four Stories is cosponsored by Gary Strack, owner of the Enormous Room, and Tim Huggins, owner of Newtonville Books. The next free event, ''Dark and Light: Stories of Laughter and Melancholy," is April 3, once again at the Enormous Room, 567 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge.
Anyone seeking further information about the series can visit www.fourstories.org. 