Reading with Jon Pineda

Submitted by princebooks on Wed, 08/04/2010 - 3:12pm

Start: 09/23/2010 7:00 pm

End: 09/23/2010 8:00 pm

On September 23th at 7:00 pm, Jon Pineda will be in store to celebrate the release of his new memoir, Sleep In Me.

About The Book:

Against the backdrop of his teenage sister’s car accident—in which a dump truck filled with sand slammed into the small car carrying her and her friends—Jon Pineda chronicles his sister Rica’s sudden transformation from a vibrant high school cheerleader to a girl wheelchair bound and unable to talk. For the next five years of her life, her only ability to communicate was through her rudimentary use of sign language. Lyrical in its approach and unflinching in its honesty, Sleep in Me is a heartrending memoir of the coming-of-age of a boy haunted by a family tragedy. A prize-winning poet’s account of the irreparable damage and the new understanding that tragedy brings to his Filipino American family, Pineda’s book is a remarkable story maneuvering between childhood memories of his sister cheerleading and moments of monitoring her in a coma and changing her adult diapers. Pineda adeptly navigates between these moments of idyllic youth and heartbreaking sadness. Vivid and lyrical, his story is an exploration of what it means to live deeply with tragedy and of the impact such a story can have on a boy’s journey to manhood.

About The Author:

Jon Pineda teaches in the MFA creative writing program at Queens University of Charlotte and is the author of two books of poetry, The Translator’s Diary and Birthmark.

Reviews For Sleep In Me:

“Sleep in Me is a sharp portrait of place, culture, and growing up male and confused in weird America while at the same time being a tender elegy for those lost. Written with the intimacy and immediacy of a diary and the attention to language and sound of a prose poem, this is a superlative and heartfelt memoir by an excellent new writer.”—Greg Bottoms, author of Fight Scenes and Angelhead: My Brother’s Descent into Madness

“Faced with the loss of a beloved sister, Jon Pineda articulates the currents and depths of tragedy unavailable to outsiders. . . . At the spiritual heart of the book is the drive to discern grievance from real grief. By the end of this tender and honest memoir, a boy’s desire to find and prove himself has strengthened and grown into a man’s thoughtful and freely chosen decision to live bravely, intent on facing forces that threaten to overwhelm and silence him.”—Lia Purpura, author of Increase and On Looking: Essays

“Sleep in Me is the rare memoir that takes nothing for granted. . . . [Pineda’s] concentrated, vivid scenes move along the edges of silence and speech, shadowing a young man’s physical prowess and his sister’s broken body, a far-flung family and inborn dislocation, variously furious, tender, devastated, and gallant.”—Robert Polito, author of Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson

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