Cunningham will read from his latest book at Rice Oct. 6

CONTACT: B.J. Almond
PHONE: (713) 348-6770
E-MAIL: balmond@rice.edu

Cunningham will read from his latest book at Rice Oct. 6
Friends of Fondren Library will host the author of ‘Specimen Days’ and ‘The Hours’

Author Michael Cunningham, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Hours” was made into a movie starring Oscar winner Nicole Kidman, will present the Friends of Fondren Library’s Distinguished Guest Lecture at Rice University Oct. 6.

Cunningham will read from and discuss his new book, “Specimen Days” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).

The free lecture, which is open to the public, will begin at 6 p.m. in Stude Hall at Alice Pratt Brown Hall, 6100 Main St., and will be followed by a book signing and reception at 7 p.m. Reservations are not required.   Books will be available for purchase. For parking details and other information, visit http://www.rice.edu/fondren/friends/lecture.html.

Publishers Weekly described “Specimen Days” as “a captivating, strange and extravagant novel of human progress and social decline.” The book tells three stories separated in time but with the same group of characters – a young boy, a young woman and an older man. “In the Machine” is a ghost story about humans coping with the new machine age during the industrial revolution; “The Children’s Crusade” is a thriller about a terrorist band setting off bombs during the 21 st century; and “Like Beauty” is a futuristic look at New York 150 years from now.   Poet Walt Whitman presides over the three stories, and the book’s title is borrowed from the name of Whitman’s 1882 autobiography.

A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Cunningham majored in English literature at Stanford University, where he received a B.A. He has an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. He received the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for “The Hours.” Among his other books are “A Home at the End of the World,” which was also made into a movie starring Colin Farrell and Sissy Spacek; “Flesh and Blood”; and a nonfiction work, “Land’s End: A Walk Through Provincetown.” A short story titled “White Angel” that he wrote was chosen for “Best American Short Stories 1989.”   The recipient of a 1988 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Cunningham now lives in New York City, where he is working on a film adaptation of the Lolly Winston novel “Good Grief.”