THE2NDHAND broasheet installment 20 release party and reading
Saturday 20 May 2006, 7:30 PM
Quimby's, 1854 W. North Avenue, Chicago, 773-392-0910, FREE

THE2NDHAND marks its sixth anniversary with a reading by Austin, Texas, writer Lauren Trojniar, whose work comprises the 20th edition of THE2NDHAND's lit broadsheet. Trojniar's "This Is How You Paint a House" is a tale exploring the moral bankruptcy at the heart of America's current cultural moment. When a Dominican-born housepainter is contracted by a suburban Pennsylvania couple to put a coat of American Anthem on their ranch-style home, their contractual agreement becomes something else entirely, the housepainter and man of the house reaching an unanticipated empathy -- something approaching camaraderie, even -- before their disparate backgrounds and temperaments intercede and send each back down his own well-trod path to drunken dissolution.

With readings by:
Lauren Trojniar
Gretchen Kalwinski
Susannah Felts
and Todd Dills