Chaucer’s Books hosts D.J. Palladino for a book talk and signing of “Spake as a Child,” 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9 at 3321 State St., Santa Barbara.

“Spake as a Child” tells three very different stories of three boys coming of age in very different eras and locales, Palladino said.

Set in the late 1950s, “The Way and Its Meaning” chronicles the misadventure of a grammar school student adapting to a new neighborhood and wrestling with the confusing moral problems of a Catholic upbringing in a nuclear age, Palladino said.

“The New God” tracks a day in the life of beach town high-school youth in the 1960s hellbent on chemical transcendence, he said.

“For Love of Monster Island” follows Mike Sheehy’s trip to Kyoto, Japan, balancing a vivid imagination against jet lag and the long shadow of the sublime, he said.

“You may remember him as that guy who wrote obsessively about Japanese monster movies, but D.J. Palladino also wrote about arts and city culture since 1980 for the Santa Barbara News & Review, Santa Barbara Independent, Santa Barbara Magazine, Seasons, and other publications including a cover story about the Michael Jackson verdict for The New York Post,” Chaucer’s said.

Since 2017, he has published two novels “Nothing That Is Ours” and “Werewolf, Texas.”
Last year his poetry collection “Electronic Sonnets” debuted. “Spake as a Child” is his first book of stories. (All were published by Genius Publications.)

Since 2017, Palladino and his spouse Diane Arnold have co-owned the Mesa Bookstore. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



 
 
 
 




 
 
 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
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