ELISSA SCHAPPELL will read on Thursday November 16th at Brooklyn Reading works at 8 p.m. The Old Stone House. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets. Five dollars.

Excerpt from her novel, USE ME:

Pouilly-Fume, Chardonnay, Pouilly-Fuisse, Sancerre." I chant my mantra in the backseat of our white rental car, Josephine, as we speed through the Loire Valley countryside, past chateaus and vineyards and endless rows of grapevines.

It’s not fair that all my friends get to be normal and go to the beach, and I have to go to France and be a total Albino. I barely ever see the sun because my parents are constantly dragging me and Dee through every museum, church, and restaurant in France. We spent two whole days in the Louvre!