Alexander Kundera author of Fight for Your Long Day

Wednesday, December 22, 7pm – Fiction

Alexander Kundera author of Fight for Your Long Day ($12 special price for book today only)

Fight for Your Long Day is a day-in-the-life satire that follows the eventful misadventures of Cyrus Duffleman, a portly, down-and-out educator who teaches at four urban universities and works the night shift. Alex Kudera’s first novel, set in the postmodern age of pervasive terror, embodies the American-made irony of being overeducated, overworked, and underpaid. This “Philadelphia story” moves at a brisk pace and with unexpected plot twists and turns, as dutiful “Duffy” grimaces and bears the debacle of his day. Accentuating the farce are corrupt college CEOs, stapler-wielding zealots, bow & arrow assassins, and our inimitable antihero Duffy, with his overstuffed book bag and cynical thoughts intact. Until the novel’s dizzying, frenzied end, it’s anyone’s guess who will escape sane, no less alive.

Alex Kudera has survived a decade of adjunct-teaching overloads but in some circles is better known for his mysterious injuries. He has bussed dishes in two countries and  loitered in bookstores on several continents. A lifelong Philadelphian until fall 2007, Alex currently teaches literature and writing at Clemson University in South Carolina. Fight for Your Long Day is his first published novel, and he is discounting the novel 20% for this reading; bring twelve dollars (cash only) and take home a signed copy.

“Duffleman is the overeducated Everyman for the age: his acute eye for detail and his ironic twist on reality take the reader on this ‘A Day in the Life’ journey through contemporary America and its moral ambiguities, anxieties, and occasional delights. These last must be taken with a smidgen of horseradish to remind us that even imagines sweetness can be sabotaged.” – Don Riggs, Associate Teaching Professor in the English and Philosphy departments of Drexel University, Philadelphia PA.

“Like a subway-scholar Ignatius J. Reilly (A Confederacy of Dunces), adjunct instructor Cyrus Duffleman channels the rage of the academic underclass. The torments Duffleman suffers, chasing across a light-rail and campus common Philadelphia, show an acute eye for all the absurdity and humiliation doled out over a long day of academic piece-work. Alex Kundera’s novel makes lemonade out of the knowledge economy’s stingy share of lemons, eking every ounce of catharsis owed to veterans of the core curriculum’s front lines.” – Justin Bauer, books columnist, Philadelphia City Paper

“Are you teaching semi-literate pre-capitalists who will soon be earning more than you ever will? Are you lorded over by self-important, market-minded college administrators with Cadillac health plans and six-figure salaries while you wonder if you’ll be assigned enough courses next semester to pay rent and utilities? Are you so fed up and desperate that you’ll cling to any fantasy, even one that could get you fired? Do you feel forsaken, not just by academia, but by literature itself? Well, finally there’s a novel for you! Fight For Your Long Day is an adjunct college teacher’s version of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Read it in your book club, give it to your pals, assign it to your gulag work crew, uh, I mean ‘your class’…” – Eric Thurschwell, former adjunct instructor of college math, barely employed calculus tutor, and comic writer published in Philadelphia Stories, Eclectica Magazine, and other literary places