SEE IT LIVE at 5PM July 20th at.... https://endicott.zoom.us/j/98897183906
Nick Antonopoulos' novel Slender Notions explores opiate addiction, writing and the quest for joy.
“I have nothing to offer anybody exce
pt my own confusion.” – Jack Kerouac
Kerouac’s words were never more timely than they are today. We are living in a period of confusion, unrest, injustice, and absurdity. We need laughter in our lives as a way to combat the day-to-day drudgery of modern life. Debut author Nicholas Antonopoulos explores this theme in his unflinchingly unapologetic debut novel, Slender Notions.
Leo is a hard living aspiring writer cut from the Kerouac cloth. He has a secret heroin addiction to cope with the inanity of his life in suburban Massachusetts. Leo bides his time with drug-addled trips to the Zen Monastery and pilfers the works of Henry Miller along with his idol, Jack Kerouac, from the local bookstore. At a poetry reading in Boston, Leo meets Cole, a divorced man on the brink of a mental breakdown and a streetwise homeless man named Zanzi. Together they devise a perfect plan to combat the struggles of their lives: The Laughter Challenge. The men decide to completely give into hysterical laughter. Echoing the words of Henry Miller, “To make the world laugh is one thing; to make it happy is quite another.” Leo and his new friends want to start a revolution from stoicism and austerity to pure joy and prove that laughter truly is the best medicine.
While their viral video of mass laughter propels Cole to guru status and new found fame, Leo and Zanzi wonder if madness really is the path to happiness and why unbridled joy and silliness are stigmatized in a society riddled with anxiety and depression?