Men don’t read serious literature. That’s what publishers told first-time author and Oak Parker Donald Evans.
So in an effort to buck the perception, Evans is taking his book, “Good Money After Bad” (Atomic Quill Press) to places that ooze manliness: a hotdog stand, bars and this Friday, Oak Park Cigars (823 S Oak Park Ave.).
“I know these guys,” Evans said, about the potential audience for his tale of the misadventures of a sports gambler living in Wrigleyville in the mid-1990s. “These are guys who might watch a basketball game before they read a book. This is right up their alley. These guys would love this book.”
Evans, a former sportswriter for the Chicago Sun-Times, moved to Oak Park a year ago and developed a fondness for Oak Park Cigars because, unlike most cigar shops, it’s somewhere guys can go to simply hang out, watch sports and smoke cigars.
“I think there’s a good synergy between a place like the cigar shop and the book I’ve written-and the kind of person I am,” Evans said.
The hotdog stand is in Arizona and owned by his uncle. Evans plans to go down there with friends and family for the book-signing and to attend a couple of Chicago Cubs spring training games.
“My uncle’s place, I eat for free there, so the worst thing that could happen is I eat a bunch of good beef sandwiches for a couple of hours,” he said.
The author was skeptical at first about the idea of holding a book-signing at the eatery, but his publicist, Sheryl Johnston, said the practice is a growing trend. One of Johnston’s other writers held a signing at a beef stand on the South Side of Chicago because the location was mentioned in his book.
“It was fabulous; he had a lot people turn out,” Johnston said. “This is something more and more authors are doing. They’re going beyond the bookstore idea to locations that play into their stories and tie-in to the audience they hope to reach.”
Evans plans to hold another reading in Oak Park June 15 at Harrison Works because the gallery features a baseball art exhibit.
This Friday (7 p.m.), Evans said the shop’s owner plans to raffle off cigars. A basketball game will be on the TV. Food will be there to eat. It’ll be a party atmosphere, he said.
Evans refuses to believe that men don’t read.
“I don’t even know what people mean by serious literature,” he said. “The guys at the cigar shops and hotdog stands, they may not want everything, but I think if something appeals to them and makes sense to them and seems like it would be entertaining, I think it’s insulting to think that they wouldn’t read.”