ERIC'S AUGUST BOOK CLUB SELECTION.

A perfect summer read, this month's selection is absurdly brilliant and just as funny on the page as it was on the stage. Just published *this month*, I'm so excited to share FAT HAM as my August book club pick.

This queer adaptation moves Shakespeare's Hamlet to a family cookout in the American South, creating a vivid new play while keeping all the heart and brilliance of the original (and none of the stuffiness). Juicy, a sensitive and self-aware college student, is already upset enough that his mom is remarrying his uncle. When the ghost of his father shows up and demands that Juicy avenge his murder, Juicy isn't sure what to do: he's already grappling with his own identity and politics as a queer, Black man, and he's sick of cycles of trauma and violence. Plus, he knows revenge didn't go so well for Hamlet in the original. If you missed this hilarious celebration of queerness on Broadway, now's your chance to join the barbecue — it'll have you begging for seconds!

-Eric

--

Winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, James Ijames' Fat Ham reinvents Shakespeare's masterpiece in startling and hilarious ways amidst the backdrop of a family barbecue in the American South.

Juicy, a young, queer Southern man, who is grappling with questions of identity--is visited by the ghost of his father (Pap) at his mother's wedding/combo family barbeque. Pap demands that Juicy avenge his recent murder. How will Juicy, a sensitive and self-aware young Black man, trying to break a cycle of trauma and toxic masculinity, avenge his father's premature death? Fat Ham reinvents Shakespeare's masterpiece in startling and hilarious ways amidst the backdrop of a family barbeque in the American South.