Julian’s Debut: A Reading and An Interview (in person & live-streaming)
March 20 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Brian Alessandro’s new novel, Julian’s Debut—his fifth book and third novel—explores the ethical gray area that comes with writing memoirs. What right do writers have to the private lives of friends, family, lovers, and acquaintances when writing memoirs?
Brian will read from Julian’s Debut and discuss its themes, inspirations, and plot with the award-winning author of 2022’s Greenland, David Santos Donaldson. Copies of Julian’s Debut will also be sold and autographed during the event.
To reserve a copy of Julian’s Debut (Rebel Satori Press, March 18, 2025, paperback, $21.95), please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com with “please reserve Julian’s Debut for March 20th event” in the subject line.
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place in person at the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, on the second floor (room 210) of The LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., NYC, 10011.
Registration is not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Also live-streaming on the Bureau’s YouTube channel:
The Bureau will solicit donations at the beginning of the event—we especially encourage donations from those who do not plan to purchase any books.
All are welcome to attend, with or without a donation.
We will pass a bag for donations at the start of the event, but we can also take credit card donations at the register or on Venmo @BGSQD
Julian’s Debut synopsis:
Julian Sorrento is a giver. Throughout much of his life he served his large, dysfunctional family at the expense of his own needs and desires. Drawing from his experiences as his family’s crutch, therapist, and bank, as well as his career as a clinical social worker of homeless youths, Julian writes a New Yorker article titled My Mighty Meekness, about altruism, sacrifice, and how putting others first could be pleasurable and rewarding, which is published to a surprising amount of attention.
Following the article’s publication, Julian’s family comes after him with a righteous fury. They claim he has exaggerated and distorted facts, making himself look like a victim and a hero and them the villains. His agent encourages him to expand the article into a book and portions of the article are also optioned by The Darlington Brothers, independent filmmakers, who hire Julian to adapt the work into a cable series for HBO (now MAX). They are interested exclusively in his anthropologist aunt who inadvertently incited a small civil war in Northeastern India, her husband, who builds bombs for Raytheon, and their son who punishes them both by inviting homeless people to live with them.
As Julian meets with each member of his family to hear their grievances, he also seeks—or sometimes makes up whole cloth—additional damning secrets about them to include in his memoir. Throughout the interminable filial reckoning, Julian leaves his job with social services, and develops the cable series with the assistance of Raul, his ex-fiancé, who makes vague allusions to sabotaging the media empire he works for as a programmer.
“An inventive, wildly entertaining novel, which revolves around the hazards of writing a memoir about one’s family. What a cast of characters Brian Alessandro has brought to life, through sparkling dialogue and vivid, often comical scenes. I enjoyed ‘Julian’s Debut’ immensely!”
– Bill Hayes, author of Insomniac City: New York, Oliver Sacks, and Me
“By turns comic, wrenching, appalling, bewildered, shrewd, never nice, and always alive, Julian’s Debut is a powder keg of a book that explodes and explodes.”
—Paul Lisicky, author of Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell
Brian Alessandro has written for Interview Magazine, Newsday, PANK (co-founded by Roxanne Gay), Huffington Post, Galerie (Wes Anderson’s cult film streaming app) Lambda Literary, The Gay & Lesbian Review, Kirkus Reviews, and The Florida Review, and has recently co-adapted Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story into a graphic novel for Top Shelf Productions. Additionally, Brian co-edited Fever Spores: The Queer Reclamation of William S. Burroughs, an anthology of essays and interviews about Burroughs for Rebel Satori Press. Brian is also the co-founder and editor in chief of the literary journal, The New Engagement. His first novel, The Unmentionable Mann, was published in 2015 by Cairn Press and his first feature film, Afghan Hound, was produced by Maryea Media in 2011, and is streaming on Plex, Tubi, and Amazon. Julian’s Debut, his fifth book, will be published by Rebel Satori Press in March 2025. Brian also has a feature film and a limited series in development with an Academy Award-winning producer.
David Santos Donaldson was raised in Nassau, Bahamas, and has lived in India, Spain, and the United States. He attended Wesleyan University and the Drama Division of the Juilliard School, and his plays have been commissioned by the Public Theater. He was a finalist for the Urban Stages Emerging Playwright Award and has worked as the Artistic Director for the Dundas Centre for the Performing Arts in Nassau, Bahamas. Donaldson is currently a practicing psychotherapist, and divides his time between Brooklyn, New York, and Seville, Spain. Greenland is his first novel.
