Local Author Celebrates "The Whole Of The Moon"

CLAREMONT, CA — Southern California author Brian Rogers will read from his novel, "The Whole of the Moon," and sign copies at Cellar Door Books on September 30 at 6 p.m.

An Orange County resident since 2007, Rogers is a former stand-up comedian whose writing has received the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society prize for Best Novel-in-Progress, the George Bennett Fellowship (Writer-in-Residence) at Phillips Exeter Academy, and the Best Ten-Minute Play prize from the Manhattan Repertory Theatre in New York.

The Whole of the Moon consists of six crisscrossing narratives set along the old Route 66, from the Inland Empire to the terminus just off Sunset Boulevard.

The stories span the years from the late 1950s to the present, and the characters are bound by a fact unknown to them: they have each checked out the same public library copy of The Great Gatsby. An actor sits poolside waiting to hear whether he has been cast in a television pilot. Two kids ditch school in 1964 and go for a hike in the woods that turns dangerous. A woman named Dot remembers her husband who spent years working on a musical adaptation of The Great Gatsby.

A young woman Felicity deals with the consequences of an unexpected pregnancy. Mike, a former high school star, attends an open tryout for the California Angels baseball team. And a boarding school teacher tells the story of his cousin, a social climber who has disappeared in the wake of a murder. These are the characters that populate The Whole of the Moon. Brian Rogers’ novel is about determination and failure and life in Southern California away from the red carpet.

Cellar Door Books is located: 5225 Canyon Crest Dr., #30A. Riverside, CA 92507

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