Nate Lippens, author of the acclaimed novels My Dead Book and Ripcord completes his Wisconsin trilogy with Bastards, a book of losses, memories, and survival.
We're so excited to be launching Bastards at Gay's The Word Bookshop, and to hear from Nate in conversation with the inimitable Olivia Laing.
We first hosted an event with Nate Lippens in conversation with Olivia Laing for My Dead Book back in July 2022, so it feels extra-special to be completing this astonishing trilogy with them both again now.
Copies of both authors' books will be available for purchase, with the opportunity for them to be signed.
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Recently sprung from a stint on a psychiatric ward, the narrator of Bastards works hard to perform at being a person while questioning the concept of identity and what it means to be an aging working-class gay man when the word queer has become so elastic and gentrified it’s used to conservative ends. Struggling to survive, pay rent, and navigate a hostile world, he takes solace in art and his friends and measures what makes a life.
Borrowing from the tropes of fragmented lyric essays, New Narrative, autofiction, and transgressive literature, Lippens is a bricoleur who creates a confected new form in his short novels. Queer pessimism in the age of affirmation. A search for something honest. An old queen’s cackle.
“I can't say enough about how good Nate Lippens's books are.” - Gary Indiana
“I’ve been reading Nate Lippens for years … I’m finally getting a grip on what kind of machine his writing is. I think it’s a poetic instrument and also some kind of natural phenomena.” - Eileen Myles
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Tickets are £3 with complimentary refreshments served on the night.
Doors Open at 7pm, event begins at 7.30pm.
Nearest tube Russell Square.
If you have any questions about accessibility, please feel free to drop us an email at gaystheword@gmail.com or call us at 020 7278 7654.