Catch This: Vendela Vida

When I was an intern at an unnamed local paper a few years back, one of my first tasks was to transcribe an especially long interview with Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, Eggers' wife. They were discussing the couple's film, Away We Go. 

At the time, I didn't know much about Vida, editor at the The Believer, journalist and novelist who wrote Let the Northern Lights Erase You and her latest, The Lovers, which she reads from and discusses tonight at University Bookstore.

The pic you will always see of Ms. Vida.

The Lovers, like her previous work, explores the lives of women in transitional points in time, in exotic locations. However, in The Lovers, the protagonist, a widow on vacation in a small Turkish village, spends her time examining her own emotional history, her unclear memories of marriage, her distance from her children and her own happiness.

Going back to my intern days: there's something lost in transcribed interviews – the casual asides and the tone of delivery, and the general mood of the interviewee. Listening to Vida talk casually about her work, her approach to writing and her enjoyment of discussing literature, got me excited to read and write. 

So while The Lovers may be good, the reading is worth the trip to hear Vida talk about books. Starts at 7:00pm.

University Bookstore, 4326 University Way NE