Brett Gelman spoke in Chicago suburb about his book — as well as about all the protesters that have shut down his book tour
CHICAGO — Rabbi Steven Stark Lowenstein, of the Am Shalom synagogue in Glencoe, looked out on the more than 300 people sitting in front of him and Brett Gelman on Tuesday night. “Raise your hand if you were at Brett’s bar mitzvah,” the rabbi said. About 20 people did.
“Ah,” said Gelman, wearing faux-leather pants and a long white sweater and a single earring. “Now that was the one thing that kept me from killing myself! That was my only good day in junior high, my bar mitzvah. I was deluded enough to believe I had friends.”
Gelman’s book tour was not going the way it was planned initially.
For one, publishers tend to prefer bookstores, not religious venues. He pulled a decent crowd at the Jewish Community Center in New York (which was planned from the start), but the Book Stall in Winnetka in February, as did Book Soup in Los
