FROM MANHATTAN TO LA JOLLA: CAL HOFFMAN’S EASY TO SLIP FINDS A HOME IN EVERY CITY
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
—Tonight at Warwick’s in La Jolla with the author in conversation with Paul Howes—
Guests enjoying the event with Cal Hoffman and Victoria Leacock Hoffman at Barnes & Noble UWS.
Cal Hoffman with wife, Victoria Leacock Hoffman
Molly Ringwall eager to listen to Cal Hoffman’s book event —photo by Patick McMullen.
A full house of 150 listeners at Barnes & Noble UWS hung on every word as Cal Hoffman read from Easy to Slip, in conversation with author and editor John Burnham Schwartz. Together, they held the audience in rapt attention.
EASY TO SLIP AUDIOBOOK IS NOW AVAILABLE!
Hear the story in the voice that wrote it—click the audiobook!
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Hear the story in the voice that wrote it—click the audiobook! 〰️
Easy to Slip Nationwide 2025 Book Tour - Seven City Events
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Palm Beach Bookstore
Tuesday, October 25, 2025 @ 5:00 PM. Palm Beach Bookstore hosts author Cal Hoffman for a reading of his debut novel, Easy to Slip —a raw, gripping coming of age story with something for every one. The author will engage in conversation with Fredric Shernoff.
Address: 215 Poinciana Way
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Books & Books in Coconut Grove
Wednesday, October 26, 2025 @ 6:30 PM. Books & Books in Coconut Grove hosts author Cal Hoffman for a reading of his debut novel, Easy to Slip —a raw, gripping coming of age story with something for everyone. The author will engage in conversation with Fredric Shernoff.
Address: 3409 Main Highway
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Barnes & Noble NYC
Thursday, April 3rd, 2025 @ 7:00 PM. Barnes & Noble on the Upper West Side hosts Cal Hoffman for a reading of his debut novel, Easy to Slip —a raw, gripping coming of age story with something for every one. The author will engage in conversation with John Burnham Schwartz.
Address: 2289 Broadway at W. 82 St.
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Diesel Bookstore, Brentwood
Wednesday, April 16th, 2025 @ 6:30 PM. Diesel Bookstore hosts author Cal Hoffman for a reading of his debut novel, Easy to Slip —a raw, gripping coming of age story with something for every one. The author will engage in conversation with Ayre Gross.
Address: 225 26th Street
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Book Soup in W. Hollywood
Thursday, April 17th, 2025 @ 5:00 PM. Book Soup in West Hollywood hosts author Cal Hoffman for a reading of his debut novel, Easy to Slip —a raw, gripping coming of age story with something for everyone. The author will engage in conversation with Richard Cox.
Address: 8818 Sunset Boulevard
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Warwick's - La Jolla
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025 @ 7:30 PM. Warwick’s in La Jolla hosts author Cal Hoffman for a reading of his debut novel, Easy to Slip —a raw, gripping coming of age story with something for every one. The author will engage in conversation with Paul Howes.
Address: 7812 Girard Avenue
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.
"You have a future," I suggest. "That's a beautiful thing." "You have a past," he counters. "Ever search for it?" We share a silent laugh. Will I ever see Larry again? --Easy to Slip excerpt by Cal Hoffman.
"You have a future," I suggest. "That's a beautiful thing." "You have a past," he counters. "Ever search for it?" We share a silent laugh. Will I ever see Larry again? --Easy to Slip excerpt by Cal Hoffman.
“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.
