Local Comedian Takes on the Brooklyn Hipster Lifestyle

It’s hard work to stay fully inside a character’s life while criticizing them. To George’s bookauthor Kate Greathead walks this line in a unique way.

In his second novel, Greathead gleefully chronicles the extraordinary life of George, a man born with all the advantages but unable to commit to a job or his girlfriend, Jenny. The documentary follows George from his teenage years in the 1990s to his early 40s in 2020, creating a complex yet humorous portrait of Millennial masculinity.

At a recent event at Books Are Magic in Brooklyn Heights, Greathead, a Cobble Hill resident, read from a novel and chatted with Teddy Wayne, her husband and author. He read another part of the book, where George describes looking at the Brooklyn apartment Jenny wants to rent and buying chickens to keep in the backyard: “George looked around the place. , which was not that big, and he thought it was covered. feathers and bird droppings. He suspected that Jenny’s dream had something to do with a string basket full of eggs, she was wearing some kind of desert dress and wooden trunks. He nurtured that childhood ambition by making George the antagonist.”

This combination of sardonic tone and psychological insight into the power of intimacy is a hallmark of Greathead’s prose.

“I remember very well the wise things that other people say, and I often write them down. I don’t consider myself a smart person by nature, but I have a good friendship,” he said.

When asked if he intends to write a character that represents Millennial men, Greathead explained, “I always start with a character. I never think in a broad way, but as I continue to write , I realized that many men can be very intelligent in many ways and still have no kind of self-awareness.”

The juxtaposition of George’s intelligence and his brilliance fuel many of the book’s most humorous moments. For example, George feels compelled to write a book about two boys who follow Jack Kerouac’s journey from On the road (because On the road has not received enough attention).

Another source of inspiration for Greathead, albeit unconsciously, was his experience as the subject of the American version of a popular British documentary series. Above. The popular documentary follows a group of people every seven years of their lives, starting with childhood. Although the American version did not run for long, Greathead was one of the headlines of its time.

“Both of my books are not plot-driven. It’s a human condition over time, and that can be seen in the same kind of long-term lens,” he said. “I also feel like in fiction, there’s this expectation that the player is change, overcome and improve, and I always find myself questioning the reality of that union, that Above series were also reviewed.”

George’s book it’s also set mostly in Brooklyn, providing material for several zingers about hipster culture in the 2000s. In one of George’s thoughts, he says to himself: “The people who ransacked Williamsburg didn’t seem like real people but extras in the movie. The responsibility was on the beauty. No matter what they wanted, whether it was tattoos and trucker hats, or bow ties and mustaches, they were all into it.

For more on George’s Droll on Brooklyn, George’s book available at Books Are Magic and other bookstores.