Join Keep St. Pete Lit, a local organization that supports the literary community, for a book club connecting the visual and literary arts.  Each month’s featured book will relate to the MFA’s collection or special exhibitions.

May 9th: Still Life with Monkey by Katharine Weber

Duncan Wheeler is a successful architect and his wife Laura is an art conservator. Duncan enthusiastically savors the quotidian pleasures in life until a car accident leaves him severely paralyzed and haunted by the death of his young assistant. Now, Duncan isn’t sure what there is left to live for, when every day has become “a broken series of unsuccessful gestures.”

The couple finds themselves in conflict as Duncan’s will to live falters. As Laura grows desperate to help him, she brings home a highly trained helper monkey — a tufted capuchin named Ottoline– to assist Duncan with basic tasks. Duncan and Laura fall for this sweet, comical, Nutella -gobbling little creature, and Duncan’s life appears to become more tolerable, fuller, and funnier. Yet the question persists: Is it Enough?

Free with admission, $10 on Thursdays after 5:00 p.m.