CITY OF LITERATURE

The Fat Artist by Benjamin Hale
This is a big week for Benjamin Hale in Iowa City. A visiting professor in the Writers’ Workshop, he’s been in town all semester, but this week an adaptation of his first novel, *The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore*, will première at the Englert as its first-ever commissioned play. He will also give a reading at Prairie Lights at 7 p.m. today from his new short story collection, The Fat Artist.

Part comedy, part philosophical musings, The Fat Artist digs into dark secrets modern Americans may be hiding. The title comes from one story in which a performance artist gains so much weight that he, rather than his art, becomes famous. Hale has the incredibly ability to mix dark, seedy stories with precise prose to draw readers in and invest them in his characters.

NEW

Dry Bones by Craig Johnson

Dry Bones, released Tuesday, is the latest installment of Craig Johnson’s Longmire Mystery series. The series has also spawned the television show “Longmire,” about to begin its fifth season. Johnson will be in Iowa City in May for the book’s tour.

As this novel starts, Sheriff Walt Longmire is looking for answers surrounding a dead rancher and the most intact and largest T. Rex skeleton ever unearthed. Johnson has gathered a bit of a cult following over the years for his modern prose — cursing included — juxtaposed with ancient lore and history. Longmire as a character is as devoted as readers, helping them feel invested in the each and every story, even if some border on hokey.

RE-DISCOVERED

Agamemnon by Aeschylus

Beyoncé’s Lemonade probably already has you feeling some kind of way toward men while embracing girl power; Agamemnon  is the perfect way to continue those emotions.

Part of the Oresteia, a trilogy of Greek tragedies from the playwright Aeschylus, the title character returns from war — a war in which he slaughtered his own daughter to gain fortune from the gods — to find his wife, Clytemnestra, is not quite over his betrayal. As she fakes happiness, she has actually taken a lover, his cousin Aegisthus. Agamemnon cannot feel too betrayed, as he brought his concubine home with him. The strength of the play lies in the calculated verse and hidden humor. There is something incredibly satisfying about watching Clytemnestra orchestrate her husband’s demise so flawlessly