New York Times bestselling author J. Ryan Stradal delivers a story of a couple from two very different restaurant families in rustic Minnesota, and the legacy of love and tragedy, of hardship and hope, that unites and divides them. Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club is a window into a colorful, vanishing world of relish trays and brandy Old Fashioneds; J. Ryan Stradal has once again given us a story full of his signature honest, lovable yet fallible Midwestern characters as they grapple with love, loss, and marriage; what we hold onto and what we leave behind; and what our legacy will be when we are gone.

The author will be reading alongside L.A.’s literary couple Alison Turner (author of The Second Split Between) and Lou Mathews (author of Shaky Town and L.A. Breakdown). Book signings to follow the readings.

Doors Open: 7:30 PM I Readings: 8:00 PM

J. Ryan Stradal is the author of New York Times bestseller Kitchens of the Great Midwest, which won the American Booksellers Association Indie’s Choice Award for Adult Debut Book of the Year, and the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award for the year’s top novel. His second novel, the national bestseller The Lager Queen of Minnesota, won the WILLA Literary Award and was a finalist for the Heartland Booksellers Award. His third and newest novel is Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, also a Heartland Award finalist, and a national bestseller the first week of its release. His shorter writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Granta, and The Guardian, among other places. Born and raised in Minnesota, he now lives with his family in California.

Alison Turner’s debut collection, The Second Split Between, was selected by Dorianne Laux to be the winner of the 2021 Catamaran Poetry Prize for West Coast Poets. Her poems have appeared in various journals including The American Poetry Journal, Mid-American Review, Hudson Review, San Pedro River Review, Catamaran, and Poetry East. She lives under the Hollywood sign with her husband, writer Lou Mathews.

Lou Mathews has written seven books and published three of them, Shaky Town, Just Like James, and L.A. Breakdown, a Los Angeles Times Best Book. He has taught in UCLA Extension’s acclaimed creative writing program since 1989. His stories have been published in ZYZZYVA, New England Review, Short Story, Black Clock, Paperback L.A., and many fiction anthologies. Mathews is also a journalist, playwright, and passionate cook, as well as a former mechanic, street racer, and restaurant critic. He has received a Pushcart Prize and a Katherine Anne Porter Prize, as well as California Arts Commission and NEA Fiction fellowships, and is a recipient of the UCLA Extension Teacher of the Year and Outstanding Instructor awards.

Masks are encouraged while inside our center.

Event attendees are expected to behave in a respectful and considerate manner while in our space. Beyond Baroque reserves the right to remove individuals from our events, virtual or otherwise, if they are not respecting the space, fellow attendees, or performers.

Please arrive early.