FROM MANHATTAN TO LA JOLLA: CAL HOFFMAN’S EASY TO SLIP FINDS A HOME IN EVERY CITY
After winning hearts and minds in seven cities, Easy to Slip prepares for its next chapter—the tour resumes in June.
After captivating audiences on the East Coast, Cal Hoffman read and discussed his novel Easy to Slip with actor Arye Gross at Diesel, A Bookstore in Brentwood. The following evening, Cal was in conversation with actor Richard Cox at Book Soup, in West Hollywood. The author’s next stop is Wednesday, April 23rd, at Warwick’s in La Jolla, where he’ll read and discuss the book with Paul Howes.
The national tour has become a grassroots literary phenomenon, driven not by marketing but by the book’s emotional honesty, the warmth of each gathering, and a growing desire for stories that feel both personal and profound.
Early Acclaim
Pulitzer Prize winners Carl Bernstein, Geraldine Brooks, David Auburn, and Doug Wright have glowingly praised Easy to Slip for its emotional depth, narrative precision, and enduring human truth. Word of mouth has done what algorithms cannot: create connections between readers. Please see the four recent press articles attached.
About the Book
Set in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Hollywood in the ’60s and ’70s: a riveting, revelatory journey. Just 17, Sam Kovner starts his freshman year at Columbia, thrown into a world of academic pressure, recreational drugs, roiling testosterone, and repressed sexuality. In the dead of winter, the dorm walls fill with abusive scrawls. Voices chatter from the halls. Sam walks—36 hours straight, the insight of memory helping him to repair his inner unraveling. As Sam comes of age, his courageous narrative proves unsettling, inspiring, and utterly unique.
The novel’s deeper power comes from what it doesn’t lead with: fame. As Cal Hoffman recounted, the main character’s life is quietly reshaped by the incidental rise of a family member—his uncle—who becomes a mega Hollywood star. But the fame, like the spotlight itself, only serves to illuminate the more intimate, universal struggle beneath: how to stay whole when the world keeps offering versions of yourself you barely recognize. The crowd, documented by celebrity photographer Patrick McMullan, included a stunning roster: Molly Ringwald and Panio Gianopoulos, actors Peter Riegert and his wife, author Cornelia Read Riegert, Josh Hamilton, Amy Stiller, Ellen McLaughlin, Jack Merrill, playwright David Auburn, authors Thomas Beller, James Sanders, Joanna Hershon, artist Will Ryman, theater producer James Nicola, musicians Tom and Steve Chapin—and Academy Award-winning documentarian Barbara Kopple, seated in the front row. After the reading, guests floated to a rooftop celebration at the Lucerne Hotel, hosted by Victoria Leacock Hoffman. Under the Manhattan night sky, Cal Hoffman signed books deep into the evening, the line curling around the terrace. With rapturous blurbs from Carl Bernstein and Geraldine Brooks already attached, Easy to Slip appears to be doing just the opposite—it’s landing with grace, weight, and resonance. Cal Hoffman, ever modest, called it “a story about getting through what nearly undoes us.” But if last night proved anything, it’s that Easy to Slip is already standing tall in the literary spotlight.
Upcoming Events:
- April 16th, Wednesday @ 6:30 p.m. - Location: LOS ANGELES, Diesel Bookstore, 225 26th Street, Brentwood, Los Angeles, Featuring: Arye Gross
- April 17th, Thursday @ 7:00 p.m. - Location: LOS ANGELES, Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, Featuring: Richard Cox
- April 23rd, Wednesday @ 7:30 p.m. - Location: LA JOLLA, Warwicks, 7812 Girard Avenue, La Jolla, Featuring: Paul Howes
Guests enjoy meeting Cal Hoffman, the author of Easy to Slip with his wife, Victoria Leacock Hoffman at Barnes & Noble UWS, NYC.
Cal Hoffman with his wife, Victoria Leacock Hoffman
Molly Ringwall eager to listen to Cal Hoffman’s Presentation —photo by Patick McMullen.
Over 150 guests packed the space: a mix of literary icons, curious readers, neighborhood regulars, and boldfaced names. The moment Cal read aloud, silence became spellbound.
Easy to Slip Nationwide 2025 Book Tour - Second Leg Begins June
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M. Judson Booksellers
Monday, June 9, 2025 @ 7:30 PM. M. Judson Booksellers hosts in its Books Over Drinks series, author Cal Hoffman for a reading of his novel, Easy to Slip —a raw, gripping coming-of-age story. The author will engage in conversation with Dorothy Dowe. ($40 includes signed book and specialty cocktail, reserve: here.)
Address: 130 S. Main St., Suite 200A Greenville, South Carolina 29601
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AZIO Media at The Gingerbread House
Saturday, June 14, 2025 @ 5:30 PM. AZIO Media’s The Gingerbread house hosts author Cal Hoffman for a reading of his novel, Easy to Slip —a raw, gripping coming-of-age story. The author will engage in conversation with David Henderson.
Address: 280 Holden Beach Road SW Shallotte, North Carolina 28470
What People Are Saying
“Intricate, hallucinatory, funny and harrowing, Cal Hoffman’s absorbing novel takes us deep into the psyche of an exceptional everyman, whose coming-of-age is at once singular and universal.”
— David Auburn, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Proof.
“At once memoir, novel, and reportage, Cal Hoffman brings us his remarkable gift for the most intimate story-telling: probing his own young psyche, through the language and tools of a writer, to unravel and overcome the hellish mysteries of psychosis. It is impossible not to marvel at this harrowing tour of the mind from deep within and the triumphant distance of recovery.”
—Carl Bernstein, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author of Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom, All the President’s Men, and Loyalties: A Son’s Memoir
“An uncle’s sudden stardom has unforeseen effects on his nephew’s family. As his celebrity soars, an impressionable boy must grapple with new definitions of success and an unbearable pressure to be special. When he arrives at college in the gritty New York of the 1970s, his mind is overrun by malevolent voices and visions. Raw, brave, and gripping, Easy to Slip is an uncommon exploration of adolescence, psychosis, and recovery.”
—Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March.
With the veracity of a diarist, Cal Hoffman uses vivid stream-of-consciousness prose to dramatize the story of a precocious young Columbian student doing his very damnest to stay on the right side of sanity. It's a story that touches the heart and the mind in equal measure....by Doug Wright, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright of I Am My Own Wife.
With the veracity of a diarist, Cal Hoffman uses vivid stream-of-consciousness prose to dramatize the story of a precocious young Columbian student doing his very damnest to stay on the right side of sanity. It's a story that touches the heart and the mind in equal measure....by Doug Wright, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright of I Am My Own Wife.
“With the veracity of a diarist, Cal Hoffman uses vivid stream-of-consciousness prose to dramatize the story of a precocious young Columbian student doing his very damnest to stay on the right side of sanity. It’s a story that touches the heart and the mind in equal measure.”
Doug Wright, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright of I Am My Own Wife.
About the Author
CAL HOFFMAN
Cal Hoffman is a writer, educator, and actor. He graduated from Catholic University and studied at Webber-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London and the MFA Fiction Writing program at Columbia U. He taught English and creative writing to immigrant children, private school students, and foster youth.
Cal acted in regional theater nationwide and starred in the acclaimed New York revival of Jules Feiffer’s play Elliot Loves.
He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Victoria Leacock Hoffman, and their son, Harry. Cal is currently completing his second novel, Judah Can’t Tell.
