Michael Lowenthal (USA / Literature / Sacatar Fellow 2008 & 2022) announced that his new book, Place Envy: Essays in Search of Orientation, will be published on February 9.
After five works of fiction, this marks Lowenthal’s first venture into the realm of real stories. Described as a memoir-in-essays—or a quest-in-essays—the book chronicles his search for orientation and belonging as an agnostic Jew, a queer traveler and lover, and a writer exploring the boundaries between truth and invention.
In the long essays that frame the book, Lowenthal recounts a yearning for “queeritage,” or queer heritage, which inspired an obsession with an uncle who died at Bergen-Belsen and later led to a surprising discovery in his grandmother’s German hometown. The essays in the book’s middle explore other journeys of dislocation and relocation: living with a Pennsylvania Amish family; accompanying blind gay men on a Mexican cruise; playing jazz with Sun Ra, the Afrofuturist who claimed to hail from Saturn; and pursuing a clarifying love affair in Brazil. Other travels take him to Shanghai and a remote Scottish island.
Place Envy is Michael Lowenthal’s most personal book to date, and he has expressed both pride and a touch of nervousness in releasing it into the world.
Readers may also pre-order the book through Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, or their favorite independent bookstore.
Lowenthal will launch Place Envy with a reading at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, with additional events planned in Boston and other cities. Further details will be announced soon.
He welcomes invitations to speak with university classes, organizations, or book groups, and appreciates any leads for interviews, podcasts, or other opportunities to share his work more widely.
