Reading: Daniel Okrent in conversation with James Carroll
Free and open to the public! Please RSVP by buying a $0 ticket. No credit card necessary.
“One of our most interesting and eclectic writers of nonfiction over the past 25 years.”
— PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Author Daniel Okrent will be reading from his recently published book, The Guarded Gate. The Guarded Gate tells the chilling story of how anti-immigration activists of the early twentieth century — most of them well-born, many of them progressives — used the bogus science of eugenics to justify closing the immigration door in 1924. James Carroll, celebrated author and thinker, will then lead a lively conversation with Daniel. Followed by refreshments and time to mingle.
About the speakers:
Daniel Okrent is the prize-winning author of six books. Before The Guarded Gate, he published Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition (2011), which was cited by the American Historical Association as the year’s best book on American history. Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in history. Among his many jobs in publishing, he was corporate editor-at-large at Time Inc., and was the first public editor of the New York Times. Okrent served on the board of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery for 12 years, including a four-year term (2003-2007) as chairman, and remains a board member of the Skyscraper Museum and the Authors Guild. A native of Detroit and a graduate of the University of Michigan, he now lives half the year in New York and the other half on Cape Cod with his wife, poet Rebecca Okrent; they have two grown children.
James Carroll attended Georgetown University before entering the seminary to train for the Catholic priesthood. He received BA and MA degrees from St. Paul’s College, the Paulist Fathers’ seminary in Washington, and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1969. Carroll served as Catholic Chaplain at Boston University from 1969 to 1974, then left the priesthood to become a writer. He has published eleven novels and eight works of non-fiction. Carroll’s memoir, An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us, received the 1996 National Book Award in nonfiction and other awards. In 2006, he published House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power, which the Chicago Tribune called “the first great non-fiction book of the new millennium.” Carroll’s essays and articles have appeared in The New Yorker, Daedalus, The Daily Beast and other publications. His op-ed page column ran regularly in the Boston Globe from 1992 to 2015. His periodic articles appear at newyorker.com
“One of our most interesting and eclectic writers of nonfiction over the past 25 years.”
— PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Author Daniel Okrent will be reading from his recently published book, The Guarded Gate. The Guarded Gate tells the chilling story of how anti-immigration activists of the early twentieth century — most of them well-born, many of them progressives — used the bogus science of eugenics to justify closing the immigration door in 1924. James Carroll, celebrated author and thinker, will then lead a lively conversation with Daniel. Followed by refreshments and time to mingle.
About the speakers:
Daniel Okrent is the prize-winning author of six books. Before The Guarded Gate, he published Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition (2011), which was cited by the American Historical Association as the year’s best book on American history. Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in history. Among his many jobs in publishing, he was corporate editor-at-large at Time Inc., and was the first public editor of the New York Times. Okrent served on the board of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery for 12 years, including a four-year term (2003-2007) as chairman, and remains a board member of the Skyscraper Museum and the Authors Guild. A native of Detroit and a graduate of the University of Michigan, he now lives half the year in New York and the other half on Cape Cod with his wife, poet Rebecca Okrent; they have two grown children.
James Carroll attended Georgetown University before entering the seminary to train for the Catholic priesthood. He received BA and MA degrees from St. Paul’s College, the Paulist Fathers’ seminary in Washington, and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1969. Carroll served as Catholic Chaplain at Boston University from 1969 to 1974, then left the priesthood to become a writer. He has published eleven novels and eight works of non-fiction. Carroll’s memoir, An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us, received the 1996 National Book Award in nonfiction and other awards. In 2006, he published House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power, which the Chicago Tribune called “the first great non-fiction book of the new millennium.” Carroll’s essays and articles have appeared in The New Yorker, Daedalus, The Daily Beast and other publications. His op-ed page column ran regularly in the Boston Globe from 1992 to 2015. His periodic articles appear at newyorker.com
