Thursday, June 4, 2009, 7-9PM
The powerhouse Arena
37 Main Street, Brooklyn
Readings by Jeff Yohai, Ruben Rivera, Mark Baker, & Brantly

Nightlife Connoisseur, Brantly Martin has been working in New York City nightlife for the past eight years, hosting weekly parties at various downtown Manhattan venues. Join New York nightlife heavyweights Mark Baker, Karim Amatullah, Rocco Ancarola, Shaun Rose, Pavan Pardasi, Scott Hockens, Matt Oliver, and DJ David Katz for a reception, reading and book signing to celebrate the release of Brantly Martin’s first novel, Pillage—a brutal yet hilarious look at the lives of Manhattan’s downtown elite at the dawn of the new millennium in Pillage, his first novel.

Detailing the decadent descent of Cracula and his crew, Martin lures us into the shadowy ambiguities of addiction—a world where desire meets destruction and the perversity of this pathos is often laughable. Be it urban wildebeest Aeronymous, the wigga with a taste for BAPE sweaters and iced coffees; the Fireman, the overgrown adolescent who knows the quickest way to your ex-girlfriend’s bed; or the Reverend, who rejected the sins of his brothers to save the Africans from themselves, the entitled creatures of this novel plunder what remains of a once-vibrant culture and reap the spoils of our languorous generation.

Between eight balls of cocaine and pints of Patron, Cracula fluctuates between reality and fantasy, hyper-aware of the façades, formulas, and falsehoods that encircle his existence, but unable to gain an advantage. Pillage reveals the inherent hypocrisy of America’s social and economic achievements, as they are made manifest in the city that never sleeps, slyly implying that triumph is a trap in itself? And the only way out? Just ask Kurt Cobain…