We left it up to Jami Attenberg to pick a spot in a not-so-crowded Bauhaus Coffeehouse this morning, and somehow she managed to find the cavelike area behind and below everything that goes on in a not-so-crowded coffeehouse. Overtired, pre-caffeinated and maybe a little bit getting sick, Attenberg seemed comfortable in the cave. An interview she did with Metblogs on her last book tour indicated that Bauhaus is one of her favorite Seattle haunts, so that explains that.

In Attenberg's first novel, The Kept Man, Jarvis is a 30-something woman teetering between self-empowerment and self-deprecation. A downtown girl who did something exciting, maybe even a lot of exciting somethings, sometime in her past. Then she married the demanding artist with the nice chin and the drive. The next thing she knew, he fell, entered a coma, and now, six years later, his body lies between death and hope in a room at some home in Queens. She visits once a week until she starts discovering his secrets, until she starts developing her own.

Honestly, so far, it's a pretty sad story. But, to its credit, because good stories need more than one emotion, there is also the humor, the sex, and the forgiving city across the river. There's a lot of New York in this book, a lot of Brooklyn, and even a bit of the Northwest. Then there are the kept men, who help her swing further to the side of self-empowerment. At least that's what we've gotten from the first half of the story.

Attenberg could, and would, be happy to fill you further in. She'll be reading from the novel tomorrow evening at Elliott Bay Books. She promises to try to stick to the parts of the story that are heavy on humor, sex, and drugs. You should go. But first, an excerpt from our conversation:

Where did this story come from?

I live in the neighborhood I was writing about: the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. I was fascinated with all the changes that were going on in the neighborhood. In Williamsburg [prices for rent have] gone through the roof. There’s a lot of gentrification there. So I think that was really ripe material. And the Terry Schiavo case was going on….I was kind of intrigued about why someone would let a loved one stay alive for so long and how the media was portraying it.

There are a lot of ways you can talk about NYC. There are a lot of possible characterizations of it. But you used a very endearing image of New York. It’s very downtown….is that your experience of New York? It seems like there’s plenty of room for the city to be very unforgiving for this woman.

You know, she’s the right kind of girl for New York. I had her living in the East Village because I lived in the East Village. I kind of came up going to parties. Even when I was in college, I’d come up to New York to go to parties. I mean, she lives a certain kind of….I’m not going to pretend I can write about something I don’t know about. Not that I live a fabulous life, I live like all the starving writers in New York. Maybe not starving, but hungry. But it gets....that kind of lifestyle gets the short shrift in the media. Like, Williamsburg has become kind of a joke as a hipster enclave. There are a lot of people who live in the neighborhood who like watching it grow and flourish. I’ve meet a lot of really cool people there. They’re not all 22 year olds who just got out of college and just want to get wasted and wear cool clothes. I wanted to show a different side of it. Hopefully that [came across]. It’s a love letter.

Are you from New York?

Well no, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and then I went to college in Baltimore. And then I moved around a lot and ended up in Seattle from 1995-98. So, that was when I was like 25-28 which was a really excellent time to be in Seattle. I think your 20s are a really good time and probably your 40s are a good time….I have no idea what’s going to happen [in Seattle] in your 30s. But I think it’s a great place to be really young. I lived on Capitol Hill and loved it. I come back every year for several months a year.

Why?

I have a friend here, I find I can write better here. In new York, it’s really easy to get caught up in the literary scene and going to more events and worrying about your Amazon ranking. When I come here, nobody really cares about any of that stuff. It’s just a good place to express yourself and have a clear mind and be creative. It’s a very freeing place for me and I feel very quiet and calm when I’m here.

Jami Attenberg will read from The Kept Man // Wednesday // 7:30 PM // Elliott Bay Books