Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series: John Banville and Abraham Verghese

The Irish novelist gets beyond The Sea, and the doctor/memoirist looks home

Comments (0) By Julia Ramey Thursday, Feb 25 2010

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Though his Booker Prize-winning novel was called The Sea, Irish novelist John Banville writes pretty much the opposite of beach fare. Seriously: The New York Times Book Review called his novel The Book of Evidence"a disturbing little novel that might have been coughed up from hell." He gets less morbid with his new novel The Infinities- which, unsurprisingly, is about an old man dying - but which veers into the comic and even the supernatural (it's narrated by a Hermes who might be the Olympian god). Joining Banville at an Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series event will be Ethiopian-born Abraham Verghese, a physician known for his work with HIV/AIDS and an acclaimed memoirist. His first novel, Cutting for Stone, spans Ethiopia, Yemen, India and the U.S. as it tells the epic tale of two brothers who fall in love with the same woman. One of the brothers leaves Ethiopia for America, but finds he can't leave his past - or his brother - behind. 7:30 p.m. Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, 800 Bagby. For information, call 713-521-2026 or visit www.inprinthouston.org. $5.
Mon., March 1, 7:30 p.m., 2010