'Love and Friendship' Reading and Book Signing
Whit Stillman, the writer/director of five films and two novels including the major motion picture "Love and Friendship" (with Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny) presents his "Love and Friendship" novel: a sharp comedy of manners.
Impossibly beautiful, disarmingly witty and completely self-absorbed: Meet Lady Susan Vernon, both the heart and the thorn of "Love and Friendship." Recently widowed with a daughter who's coming of age as quickly as their funds are dwindling, Lady Susan makes it her mission to find them wealthy husbands – and fast. But when her attempts to secure their futures result only in the wrath of a prominent conquest's wife and the title of 'most accomplished coquette in England,' Lady Susan must rethink her strategy. Unannounced, she arrives at her brother-in-law's country estate. Here she intends to take refuge – in no less than luxury, of course – from the colorful rumors trailing her, while finding another avenue to 'I do.' Before the scandalizing gossip can run its course, though, romantic triangles ensue.
About the author:
Whit Stillman is the winner of France's Prix Fitzgerald for his prior novel and the writer/director of five films, including "Metropolitan," "Barcelona," "The Last Days of Disco," "Damsels in Distress" and "Love and Friendship," a mendacious representation of this story. At university, he was an editor of the Harvard Crimson, and he later worked in book publishing and journalism. His first novel, "The Last Days of Disco, With Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards," was also derived from a film story. "Love and Friendship" includes the full text of Jane Austen's "Lady Susan."
Part of the ASU Film and Media Studies Guest Speaker Series, Stillman's visit is sponsored by the Department of English and the division of humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. Stillman will also take part in a conversation, facilitated by English faculty Devoney Looser and Kevin Sandler, at a screening of his film "Metropolitan" (1990) at Harkins Valley Art Theatre (509 S. Mill Ave in Tempe) at 7 p.m on Tuesday, March 28.