Mortar and Pessl

By Margaret Hicks in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 20, 2006 2:55PM

We’re looking forward to checking out Bookslut’s reading at The MCA Literary Gangs of Chicago tomorrow night. We love Bookslut, we love the MCA, and literary gangs are the only ones that let us wear our colors (pink and blue! Pretty.) without beating us up. But alright, okay, we’ll admit it, we’re going so we can see Hottie McHotsalot, Marisha Pessl.

We’re envious of her pretty face, but also for the stir her book “Special Topics in Calamity Physics” has made. The book isn’t even out yet and movie deals are flying. The book is about a strange death in a boarding school, leading some to pitch it as “Secret History” meets “Prep”. We liked “Prep” okay and loved “Secret History,” (so much so, that we wish we hadn’t read it so we could read it again, fresh) so we’re assuming Pessl is on the right track.

She also sold her book by auction to Viking, which is not an easy thing to do, and even less easy to make a nice chunk of change from it.

When we looked at Pessl’s biography, we saw that Pessl is a triple threat. She’s one of those “actor, writer, dancer” types that we could endlessly tease and make fun of. But we have a funny feeling we’d be eating a lot of crow come August when her book is released.

Not that we don’t like crow, we’ve eaten plenty of it, just not in the spring, too gamey.

You can see Marisha Pessl at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tues., 6:30P.M., 220 E. Chicago Ave., (312) 280-2660.