In a reading and discussion of his electric, darkly humorous collection of 13 new short stories, the inimitable T.C. Boyle, Santa Barbara resident and bestselling writer of Talk to Me and Outside Looking In, ”messes with us” as the book inscription from Willie Dixon’s I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man promises.

In the title story of I Walk Between the Raindrops, a woman sits down next to a man at a bar and claims she has ESP. In “Thirteen Days,” passengers on a cruise line are quarantined, to horrifying and hilarious effect. And “Hyena” begins simply: “That was the day the hyena came for him, and never mind that there were no hyenas in the South of France, and especially not in Pont-Saint-Esprit—it was there, and it came for him.” A virtuoso of the short form, T.C. Boyle returns to share with us these inventive and masterfully told short stories characterized by his always biting satire, resonant wit, and a boundless, irrepressible imagination.

Book signing to follow.

This event is in person at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art's Mary Craig Auditorium.

For visitors attending events in the Mary Craig Auditorium, proof of vaccination is not required, and face covering/masks are recommended, but not required.