Author Roger Rosenblatt to Read from THOMAS MURPHY Novel at Irish Arts Center

Roger Rosenblatt-the acclaimed, award-winning essayist, memoirist, and New York Times bestselling author of Making Toast, Kayak Morning, and Lapham Rising-comes to Irish Arts Center on November 30 to read from his latest novel, Thomas Murphy, a reflective, bittersweet tale of an aging poet ruminating on his colorful life. After Rosenblatt's reading, the celebrated novelist Alice McDermott will join him for a conversation about the book.

The event will begin at 7:30pm. Tickets, $12 ($10 for IAC members), can be purchased by visiting irishartscenter.org or calling Irish Arts Center's box office at 866.811.4111.

In Rosenblatt's novel, Thomas Murphy, or "Murph"-an Irishman, dreamer, and poet-takes us through his childhood on Inishmaan, a small island off the west coast of Ireland, and his life in New York, where he has lived since his twenties. We come to know his daughter, his grandson, his late wife, and his first love. Murph's mind jumps from fact to memory to fancy and though his mind is deteriorating, we see in him both the man he used to be and the man he is in his most lucid moments. And it's these moments of lucidity that make this novel all the more heartbreaking.

Roger Rosenblatt's essays for Time and PBS have won two George Polk Awards, a Peabody, and an Emmy. He is the author of six off-Broadway plays and seventeen books, including the national bestsellers Kayak Morning, Unless it Moves the Human Heart, Making Toast, Rules for Aging, and Children of War, which won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Lapham Rising, his first novel, was also a national bestseller. He is a 2015 recipient of the Kenyon Review Literary Achievement Award, and a Distinguished Professor of English and Writing at Stony Brook University.

Alice McDermott was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1953. Her second novel, That Night (1987) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the National Book Award, which she won for her 1998 novel, Charming Billy. McDermott received her B.A. in 1975 from the State University of New York at Oswego, and has taught at the University of California at San Diego and American University, has been a writer-in-residence at Lynchburg and Hollins Colleges in Virginia, and was lecturer in English at the University of New Hampshire. The recipient of a Whiting Writers Award, Ms. McDermott is currently writer-in-residence at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Founded in 1972, Irish Arts Center is a New York-based arts and cultural center dedicated to projecting a dynamic image of Ireland and Irish America for the 21st century, building community with artists and audiences of all backgrounds, forging and strengthening cross-cultural partnerships, and preserving the evolving stories and traditions of Irish culture for generations to come. Our multi-disciplinary programming is centered around three core areas: Performance - including live music, dance, theatre, film, literature, and the humanities; Exhibition - including visual arts presentations and cultural exhibitions that tell the evolving Irish story; and Education - with dozens of classes per week in Irish language, history, music, and dance.

Located in New York City, a global capital of arts and culture, Irish Arts Center serves as a dynamic platform for top emerging and established artists. Irish Arts Center is currently developing plans to construct a new facility to serve our multi-disciplinary program and will be the strongest possible gateway for artists to reach into our cultural community and nourish their work, to connect with our partner institutions who help them innovate, and to become visible in the New York City media market which enhances their ability to achieve U.S and further international success.

The New Irish Arts Center will contain a purpose-built, state-of-the-art contemporary performance space for music, dance and theatre seating up to 160; industry-standard back of house and support facilities to allow artists to achieve their vision; a second, intimate performance space - the renovated historic Irish Arts Center theatre - optimized for live music, literature, film, talks, large classes and special events; classrooms and studio space for community education programs in Irish music, dance, language, history, and the humanities, and for master classes and workshops by visiting and resident artists; technology capability to project the Irish Arts Center experience on the digital platform; an avenue-facing café lobby to engage with the neighborhood and provide a social setting for conversation and interaction between artists and audiences; a beautiful new courtyard entrance on 51st Street where the historic Irish Arts Center building and the new facility meet.