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As if to reaffirm our traditions in the arts, Authors Night, a benefit for the East Hampton Library, has become one of the most sought after and well-attended events on the summer calendar. It is often called the premier literary occasion of the Hamptons, but that seems a rather modest description for a gathering of more than 160 authors with 1,000 people attending. Under a festive tent with food and wine, guests buy (or bring) books to be inscribed at the Authors Reception. Following the booksigning, a gala evening continues with a series of dinners at private homes featuring guest authors.
And it is everything you’d expect of a midsummer celebration of life and literature in the Hamptons: elegant parties, scintillating conversation, celebrity names, an outstanding cause, all connected to the creative act of writing and the sublime pleasure of reading. The East Hampton Library is supported in part by tax revenue but relies on “bequests, gifts and donations,” as it is called it in their annual financial statement, to supplement the tax base, and Authors Night is their most prominent fundraising event.
Partnering with the library, the largest of the dinners is hosted by Hamptons Magazine. (In a natural and happy collaboration, it takes place at my home, which was built to accommodate a large private library.) As a resident, I have borrowed books from the East Hampton Library for over forty years, and as a journalist who often writes on local history I rely on materials at the Long Island Collection, the unique and rare treasure of an archive at the heart of the library.
Beyond its content, the beauty of the library building draws me back again and again. The oldest portion was built in 1912 as an idealized version of a structure from a pre-seventeenth century Kentish village where the original settlers had their roots. In 1997, the centennial year of the library’s founding, the newest extension and renovation, under the direction of Robert A.M. Stern, both restored the neo-Elizabethan architectural integrity and brought the library into the Internet age.
The featured authors at the Hamptons Magazine Authors Night dinner, beside Padma Lakshmi (our principal guest, whose cover story appears elsewhere in this issue) encompass fiction, memoir and food writing.
“Some people lived in the real world and others lived in Brooklyn” is the intriguing first line of Suzanne Corso’s pitch-perfect coming-of-age novel, “Brooklyn Story.” The descriptions and dialogue that follow are equally provocative as Samantha, her protagonist, moves through the geographical, cultural and socioeconomic milieu of Bensonhurst toward an inevitable but still uncertain future. One of USA Today’s “New Voices” of 2011, Corso’s second novel, “The Suite Life” is to be published in September. "Authors Night,” Corso told us, “for me is an organic way to tell everyone about my books. I'm honored to be part of this event and the many books that are shared somewhere on a beach chair.”
Lisa G., a radio personality on The Howard Stern Show has just published a memoir called “Sex, Lies & Cookies.” In it we learn that her name is Lisa Glasberg, she grew up on Long Island and she was obsessed with being on radio from childhood. The story of how it all happened is filled with laughs and adventures, sexual and otherwise, and believe it or not, cookie recipes. She not only bakes treats but also hosts cookie parties that are a central part of her bold and cheeky approach to life. As you’d expect, it’s more Carrie Bradshaw than Betty Crocker—wholesome does not come into the picture—and lots of fun. Glasberg has had her problems with men but for the true meaning of love, “It’s very hard to go wrong with butter and sugar—and chocolate and peanut butter.”
John Searles is editor-at-large of Cosmopolitan and a book reviewer for the Today show, but it seems that he’s spent the last nine years (since he published his second novel and now, with the pending release of his third, “Help for the Haunted”) dreaming up ways to unnerve and frighten us. A dark suspenseful Gothic tale, the plot of “Help for the Haunted” involves murders, demonology, loneliness, introspection and tragedy, and it unfolds in a riveting, unpredictable way and in a compelling style. You keep thinking you want to move on to something less scary but it’s awfully tough to put down this book once you’ve started reading. As for Searles himself, “People are often surprised that I am so upbeat.”
Food and cooking are nearly as essential to Jessica Soffer’s beautifully written debut novel, “Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots” as plot or character. Masgouf, for example, a traditional dish of the Jews of Iraq becomes a touchstone in the novel of a mother-daughter dynamic. Soffer is a natural artist with language, creating in fresh and elegant prose two unusual and finely drawn women characters adrift in New York with food never far as a presence or a reference. The bond that develops between the elderly Iraqi cooking teacher and the young girl whose world is somehow exemplified by food is unforgettable. Soffer, who is clearly one of the talented voices of her generation, says of her writing, “When my father came to the United States he was forced to abandon his family, his Jewish faith, his national pride, and so food and the flavors of his childhood were the way he reestablished a home. Writing about Iraqi Jews, about his culture, meant—for me—writing about food.”
Asked about Authors Night, Soffer says, "There are so many writers out here: we sit at the Library together, pass each other on Main Street, wait in line for coffee behind one another, but that's it. We don't overstep our boundaries. At Authors Night, however, overstepping is the point. We get to meet one another, become more than just a face. And from then on, we're in it together. We're a part of something, we're less alone, doing what we do."
Depending on your time and abilities, you can choose your pleasures in “The Hamptons & Long Island Homegrown Cookbook.” The more ambitious and culinary inclined among us will reach for the cutting board; others of us will make a beeline for the armchair to enjoy its pages. The lavishly produced book is organized by geographical areas: the Hamptons and South Fork; the North Fork and Shelter Island; The North Shore; and the South Shore; and then by restaurants with essays on the chefs and growers or resources and of course favorite recipes, all with dazzling color photographs. Lavin’s expert understanding of the world of food is matched by her gift for conveying not just the glories of the now familiar concepts of local or seasonable or sustainable but the personalities of the men and women who are making it actually happen.
“It’s a wonder to be a part of this literary tribe,” Lavin said. “I feel a bit in simpatico with an Academy Award nominee who says it’s just so great to even be nominated. To participate in Authors Night is a dream invitation to a special world—a blink-back moment that reveals a portal to a magical place filled with established, popular, and famous artists.”
I think Lavin speaks for all of us at Hamptons Magazine when she says, “As someone who has been deeply, madly, in love with books and reading and writing and telling stories for my entire life, this is somewhere over the rainbow.”