On January 17, 2022, Greenlight Bookstore hosted a virtual book launch for Colette Brooks’ Trapped in the Present Tense: Meditations on American Memory. Jennifer Egan (Manhattan Beach, A Visit from the Goon Squad) joined Brooks for a singular discussion on memory writ large.
In Trapped in the Present Tense, Emeritus Professor of Literary Studies Colette Brooks (In the City, Lost in Wonder) explores the mechanics and malleability of the collective American memory. Revisiting some of the more forgotten aspects of recent events in the American story to explain our challenging and often puzzling present—including televised assassinations, the Doomsday Clock, and obsessive diarists—Brooks refreshes the American narrative in a lyrical and inventive blend of history, memoir, and visual essay that “ruminates upon the past while reframing…our present perceptions of what matters most” (Booklist).
Watch the video below or on YouTube.