Author and musician will present from ‘Godlike’ at Beyond Baroque on March 19
Richard Hell, the influential punk rock musician and writer who helped shape the 1970s New York scene, will read from his reissued 2005 novel Godlike during a solo presentation at Beyond Baroque Literary | Arts Center in Venice.
The event is scheduled for Thursday, March 19, with doors at 7 p.m. and the reading beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the Wanda Coleman Theater. A book signing and reception will follow. Tickets are required and available in advance through Eventbrite or at the Beyond Baroque bookstore on the day of the event. Masks are encouraged inside the venue.
Godlike, now re-released by NYRB Classics, is a fictional account of a tumultuous love affair between a 27-year-old poet and a teenage boy, loosely inspired by the 19th-century relationship between Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine. Set against the gritty downtown poetry world of 1970s New York, the novel explores themes of art, desire and the chaos of creative life.
Hell, born Richard Meyers in 1949 in Lexington, Kentucky, dropped out of high school and moved to New York at 17. He co-founded early punk bands including Television and the Heartbreakers before forming Richard Hell and the Voidoids, whose 1977 album *Blank Generation* became a cornerstone of the genre. His title track is widely regarded as one of punk’s defining songs.
Since retiring from music in 1984, Hell has focused on writing, publishing novels including Go Now (1996), poetry collections, essays and the 2013 memoir I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp. He lives in New York City.
The program will not be livestreamed.
