Cynthia Bond's Novel RUBY Picked for Oprah's Book Club; Author Comes to LA LGBT Center, 3/1

In a major, long-awaited announcement, Oprah Winfrey has revealed her first selection for Oprah's Book Club in more than a year: Ruby, the riveting debut novel by Cynthia Bond. Winfrey wrote: "Believe me, it's not easy finding words to describe Ruby, because nothing comes close to the experience of reading it."

Presented by the Los Angeles LGBT Center's Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center, Bond will read from her work at the Center's Renberg Theatre at a free, one-night-only appearance on Sunday, March 1 at 7 p.m. Copies of Ruby will be for sale at the event.

"It's a love story, a ghost story, a story about the legacy of racial injustice and sexual abuse," wrote Winfrey in her enthusiastic endorsement. "The title character, when we first encounter her, is a once beautiful, now ravaged woman -- filthy and barefoot -- who wanders the streets of all-black Liberty Township, Texas. It's a place of paradoxes where drunken, cheating men chew tobacco outside juke joints, then stumble home to churchgoing wives who disapprove of their behavior yet never say so. But no one is disapproved of more than Ruby. The rumors that she's crazy are fueled by her actions, as when, in an early scene, she stands still outside and urinates, in full view of everyone. What made her that way? Layer by layer, all is revealed."

Among the many extraordinary reviews, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "Channeling the lyrical phantasmagoria of early Toni Morrison and the sexual and racial brutality of the 20th century east Texas, Cynthia Bond has created a moving and indelible portrait of a fallen woman ... Bond traffics in extremely difficult subjects with a grace and bigheartedness that makes for an accomplished, enthralling read."

Cynthia Bond has taught writing to homeless and at-risk youth throughout Los Angeles for more than fifteen years. She attended Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, then moved to New York and attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. As a PEN/Rosenthal Fellow, Bond founded the Blackbird Writing Collective in 2011. Formerly from East Texas, she now lives in Los Angeles with her daughter and teaches therapeutic writing at Paradigm Malibu Adolescent Treatment Center. A native of East Texas, she lives in Los Angeles with her daughter.

DETAILS:

WHAT: CYNTHIA BOND reads from her Oprah Book Club-endorsed novel, RUBY

WHERE: Los Angeles LGBT Center's Renberg Theatre, The Village at Ed Gould Plaza, 1125 N. McCadden Place, Los Angeles 90038 (one block east of Highland Ave.; just north of Santa Monica Blvd. - Free parking)

WHEN: Sunday, March 1, 2015 at 7 p.m.

TICKETS: Admission: FREE (suggested donation $10); to purchase, visit lalgbtcenter.org/theatre or call 323-860-7300.

About the Los Angeles LGBT Center - Since 1969 the Los Angeles LGBT Center has cared for, championed and celebrated LGBT individuals and families in Los Angeles and beyond. Today the Center's more than 450 employees and 3,000 volunteers provide services for more LGBT people than any other organization in the world, offering programs, services and global advocacy that span four broad categories: Health, Social Services and Housing, Culture and Education, Leadership and Advocacy. We are an unstoppable force in the fight against bigotry and the struggle to build a better world; a world in which LGBT people can be healthy, equal and complete members of society.

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