ROOM 220 Presents: A Happy Hour Salon with Brian Boyles and Jami Attenberg

Room 220 is pleased to host a Happy Hour Salon to celebrate the launch of New Orleans Boom and Blackout: One Hundred Days in America’s Coolest Hotspot by Brian Boyles from 6 – 9 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 26, at the Press Street HQ (3718 St. Claude Ave.). The event will also feature best-selling novelist Jami Attenberg.

New Orleans Boom and Blackout is a nonfiction account of the 100 days preceding the 2013 Super Bowl hosted in the New Orleans Superdome. Many will recall the (partial) blackout referenced in the title. Through original research and interviews, conveyed from a casual yet erudite first-person perspective, Boyles unpacks the complex tangle of events that took place as the local government, tourism apparatus, and city at large prepared to showcase the New New Orleans for millions of Americans who had their eyes trained on the game. From the Streetcar Line To Nowhere to VIP celebrity events to cab drivers, bartenders, and street performers hustling like mad to capitalize on the influx of visitors, New Orleans was rife with happenings those 100 days before the game. Through Boyles’ interpretation, they speak volumes about the present state of our city.

Read the Room 220 interview with Boyles, conducted by Jarret Lofstead.

Jami Attenberg is the author of five books, including the New York Times bestselling novel The Middlesteins, which has been translated into nearly a dozen languages. Her forthcoming book, Saint Mazie, is a novel inspired by a movie theater ticket taker-turned-caregiver on Manhattan’s Lower East Side profiled in Joseph Mitchell’s classic Up in the Old Hotel. Attenberg writes frequently for the New York Times, The Rumpus, Salon, and other distinguished places.

As always, this event is free and open to the public.