On today's episode, we welcome Penny Allen, author of the new novel This Rescue Thing. Penny is best known as a filmmaker, whose roots as a Portland activist led to her writing, directing, and producing her first two features: Property, a Sundance Festival prize winner, in 1979 and Paydirt in 1981. She moved from Portland to a horse ranch near Sisters, Oregon soon after, which she recounts in her memoir A Geography of Saints. Then from Sisters to Paris, France where she worked on environmental issues and published a book on the environment Metaphors for Change. She also returned to making movies with two more features The Soldier’s Tale in 2007 and Late for My Mother’s Funeral In 2013.
Penny’s work often blends fact and fiction, and the new book This Rescue Thing is based on actual events in her life. In the words of fellow filmmaker Gus Van Sant, who got his start working with Penny: “I cannot remember a book where I cried so often… a valiant woman visiting a friend, who turns out, she is saving from madness, delusion, disorientation, in a very foreign country – and parts of it are from pre-tech Portland, just as I remember it… this book has everything.”
Penny will be reading at Broadway Books in NE Portland Thursday November 14th at 6pm. And at Belmont Books in SE Portland Saturday November 16th at 6pm.
- KBOO