Johnathan Safran Foer Comes to Chicago

By Lindsey Miller in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 17, 2009 10:20PM

Tomorrow evening at the Harold Washington Library, author Jonathan Safran Foer will speak about and sign copies his new book, Eating Animals.

In his first foray into the nonfiction world, Foer focuses on his own struggles with eating meat, his research on factory farms, as well as the cultural and familial traditions and myths that keep Americans eating meat. Eating Animals is organized in a series of essays, and ends with a seasonally appropriate turkeyless Thanksgiving. The New Yorker review notes that while he spends much of the book seemingly arguing for vegetarianism, he does voice support for sustainable and ethical farming as well.

"Almost always, when I told someone I was writing a book about 'eating animals,' they assumed, even without knowing anything about my views, that it was a case for vegetarianism," [Foer] says. "It's a telling assumption, one that implies not only that a thorough inquiry into animal agriculture would lead one away from eating meat, but that most people already know that to be the case."

Natalie Portman went a step further, and admitted in The Huffington Post that she became vegan after reading Foer's book.

Foer has written two acclaimed novels, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, about a boy who searches for closure after his father is killed in the 9/11 attacks; and Everything Is Illuminated, about an American Jew who travels to the Ukraine to discover his family's past. The latter was also made into a film of the same name starring Elijah Wood.

The event is free and begins tomorrow, November 18, at 6 p.m. at the library's Cindy Pritzker Auditorium at 400 S. State Street.