The Loudest Voice with Glen David Gold

My good friend Bryan Hurt organized the second Loudest Voice reading at the Mountain Bar in Los Angeles last night. We packed out the second story, despite the sweltering conditions (management refused to turn down the heater) and a bouncer who continued to harass everyone even after they’d been carded. Cody Todd read a number of excellent poems, one of them Pushcart nominated; Katherine Karlin, a Pushcart winner, read a short story inspired by one of the poems read at the last Loudest Voice; and Andrew Allport crooned some tunes.

The highlight of the Evening was Glen David Gold, author of Carter Beats the Devil, who read from his new, as-yet-unnamed novel. He said it had been "kicking his ass for the last six years", and read us the first chapter, which included a lighthouse-manning mother who wished for a disaster to relieve the monotony, her son as a rebellious idealist, and the sighting of a man in a sinking craft at sea who appears to resemble Charlie Chaplin. Afterwards, Gold said that because of the editing process and the period before printing, the novel won’t be out for another two years, give or take six months, which is too bad because we all can’t wait.