An Afternoon of Prose with Richard Mirabella & Ben Purkert (in person & on Zoom)

Join the HVWC staff in person at the Hudson Valley Writers Center or live on Zoom as we welcome two debut novelists, Richard Mirabella & Ben Purkert) with highly-anticipated books out this summer.

Ben Purkert is the author of the poetry collection For the Love of Endings. His work appears in The New Yorker, the Nation, and the Kenyon Review, among others. He is the founder of Back Draft, a Guernica interview series focused on revision and the creative process. He holds degrees from Harvard and New York University, and he currently teaches at Rutgers.

about Richard Mirabella’s book:

“Riveting, relentless. A novel of calm and chilling reserve and accomplishment.” —Joy Williams, author of Harrow

“Mirabella’s debut novel—about a pair of once-close siblings and how the bruises of their youth swell into adulthood—is both bracing and a balm, his softly disarming sentences like cotton puffs that absorb the pain of deep cuts.” —Michelle Hart, Electric Literature

about Ben Purkert’s book:

“Purkert’s writing is a gift and it shines through these pages.”—HANIF ABDURRAQIB

“The Men Can’t Be Saved is an experience that transcends the act of reading fiction. It is an indictment, a call to self-examine, and ask questions, but it manages this while still being playful, lighthearted, and generous. What I love most about Purkert’s writing—across genres—is that it finds a perfect line between a voice that is confident, but also grounding itself in the realities of uncertain living. That is a gift, and it shines through these pages.”―Hanif Abdurraqib, author of A Little Devil in America

“Funny, witty, and incisor-sharp, Purkert nails down the hypocrisies of modern masculinity and capitalism with the graceful hand of a poet. This novel says so much so well about the absurd moment in which we, grudgingly, live.”―Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun

“Ben Purkert’s The Men Can’t Be Saved is a work of wit and timely power. Faith and modernity, capitalism and masculinity, sex and identity—this novel has it all, and gets away with it. The style and the intellect herein mark the coming of a major new talent.”―Darin Strauss, author of The Queen of Tuesday

“A brilliant skewering of modern-day masculinity. Wildly gripping, charmingly funny, bone-hard, and real. Purkert is the kind of writer whose work I’ll follow anywhere.”―Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!

A knockout debut novel that tackles a haunting question: What do our jobs do to our souls? Seth is a junior copywriter whose latest tagline just went viral. He’s the agency’s hottest new star, or at least he wants his coworker crush to think so. But while he’s busy drooling over his future corner office, the walls crumble around him. When his job lets him go, he can’t let go of his job. Thankfully, one former colleague can’t let him go either: Robert “Moon” McCloone, a skeezy on-the-rise exec better suited to a frat house than a boardroom. Seth tries to forget Moon and rediscover his spiritual self; he studies Kabbalah with an Orthodox rabbi by day while popping illegal prescription pills by night. But with each misstep, Seth strays farther from salvation—though he might get there, if he could only get out of his own way.  In his debut novel, Purkert incisively peels back the layers of the male ego, revealing what’s rotten and what might be redeemed. Brimming with wit, irreverence, and soul-searching, The Men Can’t Be Saved is a startlingly original examination of work, sex, addiction, religion, branding, and ourselves.