In Conversation: David Adjmi's Memoir

In his gorgeous new book, Lot Six: A Memoir, celebrated writer and Playwrights Horizons commissionee David Adjmi recounts his tumultuous search for identity with the razor-sharp wit and penetrating insight that has propelled him to theatrical success (Stunning at LCT3, Marie Antoinette at Soho Rep., the upcoming Stereophonic). A closeted Syrian Sephardic Jew growing up in a gossipy, insular Brooklyn community, David was increasingly desperate to recreate himself — so he turned to art for clues on who to become. 

On Thursday, December 10, join David and actress Marin Ireland for a reading and discussion, moderated by Artistic Director Adam Greenfield. The conversation will be livestreamed on our Facebook channel at 6:30pm ET — click below to sign up for email reminders, and to submit questions for David. 

Free Registration & Advance Questions

Lot Six is available wherever books are sold -- we recommend supporting independent booksellers in your community during this time. The link will take you to our event partner, McNally Jackson Books. 

Purchase Lot Six

Watch the Conversation

More About Lot Six

Spanning decades, this vibrant chronicle unspools what he calls “a Dickensian story of self-invention inside a complicated framework of friendship and family.” An emotionally adrift outsider in his own home, David’s feelings of displacement were intensified by the early realization he was a “lot six”— slang for queer in the Syrian Jewish community. Groomed for a conventional life in the electronics business, he rebelled against his yeshiva education and upbringing and found a haven—and more—in eighties pop culture. Already a protean character, the born storyteller committed fully to recreating himself.  

While sharing his coming of age tale, Adjmi reflects unsparingly on wrestling with his homosexuality, navigating bastions of privilege as an interloper, discovering his talent, and reckoning with his family legacy of dysfunction. At once singular and relatable, this absorbing account is about finding and losing oneself in the mirrors of art and culture when one feels displaced from birth. It is about finding one's voice and learning how to deploy it. And it is about the difficult, occasionally exhilarating process of forging a path as an artist and an individual. 

About the Artists

David Adjmi was called "virtuosic" by the New York Times and was named one of the Top Ten in Culture by The New Yorker in 2011. His newest play, Stereophonic, with music by Will Butler (Arcade Fire) will premiere on Broadway in spring 2021. His plays have been produced and developed by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Soho Rep., Lincoln Center, Steppenwolf, and many others. He was awarded a Mellon Foundation grant, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writers’ Award, the Kesselring Prize for Drama, the Steinberg Playwright Award, McKnight and Jerome fellowships, and the Bush Artists Fellowship, among others. He is the recipient of residencies from the Dora Maar House, American Academy of Rome, the Bogliasco Foundation, The MacDowell Colony, Corporation of Yaddo, Djerassi, UCross, and others. He lives in Los Angeles. For more information, follow @dadjmi on Twitter. 

Marin Ireland's theatre credits include Blue Ridge, Reasons to be Pretty (Theatre World Award, Tony nomination), The Big Knife and After Miss Julie, both also on Broadway, Ironbound, Kill Floor, Blasted, Marie Antoinette, Summer and Smoke, Three Sisters, and Cyclone (Obie Award), among others. Television and film work includes Light From Light, The Irishman, Sneaky Pete, Girls, Homeland, Masters of Sex, The Divide, The Slap, Sparrows Dance, The Family Fang, 28 Hotel Rooms, In the Radiant City, Hell or High Water, Glass Chin (Independent Spirit Award nomination), and Flint, in which she portrays activist Melissa Mays.