Book Launch: Jeremy Mulderig and Barrie Jean Borich

“Exceedingly enjoyable, well-paced, and fascinating. The English major in Steward gives him a sly but delectable way with words that surfaces in delicious turns of phrase every now and then, adding literary quality to what is, hands down, already a fascinating life story."— Joseph Allen Boone, University of Southern California

“Every page reveals the depth of Borich’s craft. . . . Apocalypse, Darling is a book for attentive readers, and is best read in one sitting. The magic of Borich’s prose makes it difficult to look away.”—Lambda Literary

Jeremy Mulderig and Barrie Jean Borich discuss their respective books The Lost Autobiography of Samuel Steward and Apocalypse, Darling. A Q/A and signing will follow the discussion.

Presented in parternship with the UChicago Program on the Global Environment

At the Co-op

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About The Lost Autobiography of Samuel Steward: In The Lost Autobiography of Samuel Steward, Jeremy Mulderig has integrated Steward’s truncated published text with the text of the original manuscript to create the first extended version of Steward’s autobiography to appear in print—the first sensational, fascinating, and ultimately enlightening story of his many lives told in his own words. The product of a rigorous line-by-line comparison of these two sources and a thoughtful editing of their contents, Mulderig’s thoroughly annotated text is more complete and coherent than either source alone while also remaining faithful to Steward’s style and voice, to his engaging self-deprecation and his droll sense of humor. Compellingly readable and often unexpectedly funny, this newly discovered story of a gay life full of wildly improbable—but nonetheless true—events is destined to become a landmark queer autobiography from the twentieth century.

About Apocalypse, Darling: From award-winning author Barrie Jean Borich comes Apocalypse, Darling, a narrative, lyric exploration of the clash between old and new. Set in the steel mill regions of Chicago and in Northwest Indiana, the story centers on Borich’s return to a decimated landscape for a misbegotten wedding in which her spouse’s father marries his high school sweetheart. The book is a lilting journey into an ill-fated moment, where families attempt to find communion in tense gathering spaces and across their most formative disappointments. Borich tells the story of the industrial heartland that produced the steel that made American cities, but also one of the most toxic environmental sites in the world.

About Jeremy Mulderig: Jeremy Mulderig is an emeritus professor of English at DePaul University and the editor of Philip Sparrow Tells All: Lost Essays by Samuel Steward, Writer, Professor, Tattoo Artist, also published by the University of Chicago Press (2015).

About Barrie Jean Borich: Barrie Jean Borich is the author of Apocalypse, Darling (Ohio State University Press: Mad Creek Crooks/Machete Series in Literary Nonfiction 2018). PopMatters said “Apocalypse, Darling soars and seems to live as a new form altogether. It's poetry, a meditation on life as ‘the other,’ creative non-fiction, and abstract art.” Her memoir Body Geographic (University of Nebraska Press/American Lives Series 2013) won a Lambda Literary Award in Memoir, an IPPY (Independent Publisher Book Award) Gold Medal in Essay/Creative Nonfiction, and a 2013 Forward INDIE Bronze Award for Essays. In a starred review Kirkus called Body Geographic “an elegant literary map that celebrates shifting topographies as well as human bodies in motion, not only across water and land, but also through life.” Borich’s previous book, My Lesbian Husband (Graywolf 1999, 2000), won the American Library Association Stonewall Book Award. She is an associate professor in the Department of English and MA in Writing and Publishing Program at DePaul University in Chicago, where she edits Slag Glass City, a journal of the urban essay arts.