Events

Colfax Avenue: Acclaimed literary biographer Roy Morris, Jr., will discuss and sign his new book Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain ($26.00 Simon & Schuster). With a pitch-perfect blend of appreciative humor and critical authority, Morris sheds new light on this crucial but still largely unexamined period in Mark Twain’s life. He carefully sorts fact from fiction—never an easy task when dealing with Twain—to tell the story of a young genius finding his voice in the ramshackle mining camps, boomtowns, and newspaper offices of the wild and woolly West, while the Civil War rages half a continent away. Lighting Out for the Territory is a fascinating, even inspiring, account of how an unemployed riverboat pilot, would-be Confederate guerrilla, failed prospector, neophyte newspaper reporter, and part-time San Francisco aesthete reinvented himself as America’s most famous and beloved writer. It’s a good story, and mostly true—with some stretchers thrown in for good measure. Request a signed copy: books@tatteredcover.com