J.W. Goethe Universität Frankfurt and Mr. Daniel Wendell the deputy director of the Amerika Haus in Frankfurt.
Mr. Dormagen of the Suhrkamp Verlag then gave a short biography of Tristan Egolf who was born 1971 in Pennsylvania and played guitar in a punk band in New York after having quit college.
While travelling through Europe Tristan Egolf wrote on his first novel
Lord of the Barnyard (1999) which was amazingly published first by a French publishing house.
After the formalities Tristan Egolf read two passages out of his new novel
Skirt and the Fiddle (2003) enabling the audience to get a brief impression of the main characters Charlie Evans, Tinsel Greetz and Louise as well as the plot of the story. Tristan Egolf tells the story of a social outsider in Philadelphia who gets involved in a relationship with Louise who is obviously a member of a higher social class. This fact leads to a summary of humorous and tragic situations showing the difficulties to cope with life in a city like Philadelphia.
In connection to this the participants of the workshop had the chance to take part in an open forum with the author Tristan Egolf.
This discussion made clear that his figures and the places he mentions in his books have many similarities to experiences in his own life.
Tristan Egolf even gave some information about his hostile childhood and how he grew out of punk rock and came to writing and that he wouldn’t take an invitation to dinner by the president without having a gun.
The event can be summarized to have been a great success.
Every question of the audience was answered, the way Tristan Egolf read out of his new book definitely made curious to read more of this interesting novel.
I would recommend everybody to at least have short glimpse into this book.
