Join us in Books Upstairs, D’Olier Street, Dublin 2, on Monday 19 June  for a celebration of Stewart Parker’s lyrical novel Hopdance, largely drafted in the early 1970s but unpublished in his own lifetime. In a great tradition of Irish autobiographical fiction that includes James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Seamus Deane’s Reading in the Dark, Parker’s poignant novel centres on the amputation of his left leg when he was a 19-year-old university student. Masterful vignettes present the callow protagonist’s life before, during and after this ordeal.

Marilynn Richtarik, Parker’s biographer, will read from Stewart Parker’s Hopdance (published by The Lilliput Press this year) and discuss the real events upon which it is based and the role it played in Parker’s life. Richtarik will also describe her own process of editing the novel and answer questions from the audience. More information here

Marilynn will also be reading at The Lighthouse Bookshop in Edinburgh on Friday 23 June.