Tony Tulathimutte, a Writers’ Workshop alum, will read from his début novel Thursday at Prairie Lights.

By Isaac Hamlet
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Margaux Weisman can point to the exact line from Private Citizens that had her hooked: “Undergrad Linda, her tea-drinking, Deleuze-reading, sweatpants-wearing college roommate … all inked up like some community mural, high-waisted shorts like denim diapers. It was so depressing when women depoliticized themselves with hot pants.”

The moment made her laugh out loud and prompted her to immediately share the passage with her husband.

“I pretty much knew I was interested from the first page,” Weisman, editor for the book, said. “As an editor, I respond more to voice. Every sentence is paced with humor and nuanced insight.”

At 7 p.m. Thursday, Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque, will welcome Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate Tony Tulathimutte to read from his début novel.

“It’s kind of tough to describe,” Tulathimutte said. “If I describe the plot it sounds like an episode of ‘Girls’; it’s a book about four 20-somethings living in a city in America, dealing with 20-something stuff.”

Each of these four characters exists in a different realm of social privilege. Henrik is a Standford graduate who’s never really had a comfortable middle-class life. Linda struggles with the way women are treated by society. Cory is an idealistic woman supported by her rich father, and Will is an Internet-dwelling Asian-American.

Privilege is an “unavoidable subject of interest” for Tulathimutte. In fact, when sitting down to write, he hadn’t intended to even write about 20-somethings. He just knew he wanted to write something that would be important.

“It’s not an autobiographic novel, but it deals with things I’ve experienced,” he said. “I wanted to reconcile with my own life and the book ended up having to be its own justification.”

Tulathimutte wrote the book in a sort of disjointed fashion, composing bits of it separately before starting to tug them together as he began to figure out how they fit with one another.

Despite this seemingly scattered method, he tried to create a “raristic,” not just a good book, but a book that was good page to page.

“It’s important to me that it’s fun,” Tulathimutte said. “My favorite experience reading is when people are addicted to an intellectual experience that makes you want to skip work and skip having kids just to finish the book.”

By having such a varied swath of characters, the book could find its way to readers who might identify with its cast in unexpected ways.

“I don’t know why it’s so thrilling to come across something that mimics the fabric of real life so specifically,” Weisman said. “But regardless of who you are, you feel like you know all of these characters.”

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Event: Tony Tulathimutte reading, Private Citizens

Where: Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque

When: 7 p.m. Thursday

Admission: Free