The Truth Lenders Release Party on Friday, April 30th at the Empyrean
I was very excited to hear Thuy talk about her book and then to not only get to meet some of the people that the characters in the book were based on but to hear their music. It was a cold rainy evening in Spokane; to fix that I ordered a cup of peach ginger tea with honey and a melted three cheese (provolone, havarti, Munster) sandwich. Oh so satisfying.
Som sort of emceed the evening with Thuy; he had fun and had the full room laughing. The menu for the evening included words, words with music, and music. The music was singer songwriter, glitch electronic pop, Americana, and even hip hop. Som welcomed Thuy with “…crazy & creative enough to pull such an ambitious project, The Truth Lenders.”
Until today Thuy had 20 boxes of books in her house. Their burnt orange covers were in hands all throughout the room. Thuy started off by thanking everyone including the Empyrean for hosting the event and there is also a fictional location in the Truth Lenders based off the Empyrean. Thuy talked about how details came from the characters themselves, who are real people and good friends. Some characters are even based off of three different people. Jacob Butcher edited the book and performed two songs saying if you don’t like the book you can blame me instead of her (since he edited it.) He played an older song and a newer song with his acoustic guitar and harmonica, he is part of Donaldson West. I would like to add that I don’t think you will have a problem not finding this book interesting. It is very mind stimulating and dense with beautiful and helpful footnotes. Including a footnotes CD!
The Truth Lenders has 100 chapters, but some are only fractions and there is even a chapter for Pi. Joe Varela played a tune with Dan Spalding and Joe is part of Peter in the book. Kurt read a poem out of the book about his character a Komodo Dragon and his thumbs. Mark Anderson read us his poem “Snow Cave” and he is a character in the book who informs us of Military Grade Eggs. Ross Robinette performed as Spynspeck and had the floor dancing, he did a great job! He had such a cool space ship like podium built with a fog machine. Kevin Long and his brother Curran ended out the night with four songs including “Tic Tac Toe” and “Until I Heard this Sound.” Which this puppy dog who came into the empyrean loved, because she decided to lay down in the center of the floor during his set.
Thuy has done something amazing by creating the Truth Lenders. I am about 50 pages deep and am fascinated by her thoughts and characters. I love getting to the footnotes searching for the times when I get to play the CD. The Truth Lenders is a new world with a new government and some adorable characters like Nattie. I ask you to pick up a copy at Aunties or from Thuy and be a bookworm. Indulge your mind in to a bit of creativity mixed with words and music. Congratulations Thuy!!!
Photos courtesy of Andrea Williams.
