Stories and Songs is a new series of musicians and writers occurring every second Sunday of the month throughout 2011 at The Living Room on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Hosted by Danny Lanzetta, who recently released his novel, Gadfly, as well as a spoken word EP Declaration of Us, the series will feature some of the city’s best songwriters, fiction writers and poets in an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of the old literary salons. The evenings are anchored by Lanzetta and his band, as they attempt to shatter the laid-back, finger-snapping stereotype associated with the spoken word genre. Each month opens with a new reader and closes with a new songwriter. The idea behind the residency is to create a dynamic environment for people—both performers and audience members—who desperately care about the ability of language to transform, inspire and communicate.
STORIES and SONGS
© 2011 Danny Lanzetta
“Gadfly surprises and seduces by drawing the reader into a world that is both captivating and scary. Thanks to Lanzetta's sharp, precise writing, this book quickly pulls us into a strange and unique world. With fast and furious dialogue, this highly readable novel forces us to re-think our everyday lives. Gadfly is smart and brave work, which leaves us eagerly anticipating more from Lanzetta.”
—Martin Hyatt, author of A Scarecrow's Bible and winner of the Edmund White Award
“Patrick Bateman meets Harvey Pekar in this debut novel on the edge, a violent romp of regrets and rants that movingly—and with scathing humor—constructs a new bridge to nowhere, only a view of guilt and rage and the territory between. A book for cross-town reading. Recommended.”
—Andrew Zornoza, author of Where I Stay
Gadfly is the right title for Danny Lanzetta's new novel. Not only does it name our complicated hero, but it speaks to the very style of Lanzetta's art: provocative, pushy, instigating, loud, smart, philosophical, cunning, and always aimed at doing what art does so well: raise the issues, challenge the system, fight the power. Lanzetta's politics, his poetry and prose, his passion, have never been more seamlessly woven together than in this new novel. Gadfly will disturb you, but, then again, isn't that the point?
—Joseph Salvatore, author of To Assume a Pleasing Shape