POSTPONED: Charles Souby - A View from the Borderline (Corte Madera Store)

Please note: This event has been postponed due to concerns for the health and well-being of our community. For updates on this event and for additional event information, please subscribe to our e-newsletter.

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In A View from the Borderline, acclaimed author Charles Souby affirms his “powerful, empathetic study of place and character” (Kirkus Reviews), his gift for dark humor, and his insight into troubled and twisted human minds. Set in Hollywood, Chicago, and nameless Midwestern small towns between the 1970s and the present, these twenty short stories introduce an eclectic cast of characters who range from quirky to deranged. These misguided, wild, lost, and warped to varying degrees, the “borderline” men and women include:

• Davenport, a recently retired investment advisor, who hatches a plot to poison the reputation of his widely beloved apartment neighbor Mrs. Goldberg, a recently retired librarian devoted to feeding pigeons, using bread and Alka Seltzer (spoiler: it plops) in “The Gurgling Coup.”
• Leonard, a plodding AAA clerk off on a psych leave and a regular at the local racetrack bar, whose knack for picking winning horses tragically collides with his weakness for boozy redheads in “Silver Slum Dog.”
• Mrs. Rosewood, whose audacious plan to expose her drycleaner as a thief—with the help of a nimble accomplice, her little daughter, and lighter fluid—gets the attention of a hostage negotiator in “The Plaid Golf Pants.”
• Stephen, a remedial student at a second-rate prep school, who, in the summer of 1973, becomes infatuated with a sweet but troubled waif—a 16-year-old runaway from her father’s threat to have her institutionalized for her “disorder,” characterized by smoking pot and having sex, in “Christa’s Case.”

At turns hilarious, touching, and chilling, A View from the Borderline brings eccentric, damaged, and unhinged characters brilliantly to life.

Charles Souby is the author of three novels: Winifred, A Shot of Malaria, and A Long Time Gone. His short stories have appeared in The Saturday Evening Post Online, Story Teller Magazine, and Opening Line, and his poetry can be found in 5 Poetry Magazine, Bohemian Magazine, and the California Quarterly Review. Born and raised in Chicago, he has lived in San Francisco and Alaska, and worked as a radio broadcaster, improv actor, and folk musician. He lives in Kappa, Hawaii.