Brown Club of Washington, DC
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
October 15 2019, 6:30 PM Eastern Standard Time
- Location
- Potter's House
- 1658 Columbia Rd NW
- Washington, DC 20009
- USA
- Cost
Josh Levin '02, national editor at Slate and the host of the sports podcast "Hang Up and Listen," will give a talk on his book The Queen, which was named a New York Times Book Review editors' choice selection and was one of the summer's Best Reviewed books on Literary Hub. The book is about Linda Taylor, who was the first person known as the "Welfare Queen" and how her crimes were politicized in the 1970s and 1980s. The talk will take place at Potter's House, a nonprofit cafe, bookstore, and event space in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of DC. A few accolades for The Queen:
"The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth reads like a detective story. Yet it serves up serious and timely questions about the way stereotypes can overpower evidence." --Lisbeth B. Schorr, Washington Post
"Another author would have used the 'welfare queen' as a jumping-off point to explore stereotypes, welfare politics and political rhetoric. Levin addresses all that, but his real goal is to put a face to Reagan's bogeywoman, tracking every alias, every scam, every duped husband and every dodged arrest. He presents Linda Taylor not as a parable for anything grand, but as a singular American scoundrel who represented nothing but erself...Part of the fun of Levin's book is burrowing inside his obsessive quest." --Sam Dolnick, New York Times Book Review
The event will be moderated by DC Councilmember Elissa Silverman '95. Before joining the Council in 2015, Silverman worked as a journalist with the Washington Post and City Paper, and as an urban policy wonk at the DC Fiscal Policy Institute.
RSVP today to reserve your ticket!