The Multnomah County Library hosts a five-part reading and discussion series on the theme "Demons, Golems and Dybbuks: Monsters of the Jewish Imagination." Participants will read "Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes" by Tony Kushner for the fifth session; each session must be registered for individually.

Synopsis: This two-part play opens with a rabbi's eulogy for Louis Ironson's immigrant grandmother, but the nebbishy paralegal soon becomes embroiled in a personal drama emblematic of the Reagan years. Louis abandons his AIDS-stricken lover for a married Mormon lawyer, a protégé of Roy Cohn, the censorious powerbroker who lives in denial of his own identity and terminal illness. At a time when many playwrights were thinking small, Kushner crafted a sprawling tapestry unafraid to embrace large political, social and spiritual themes or to weave the phantasmagoric into everyday life. By invoking the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg as well as Aramaic texts, this Pulitzer Prize-winning epic, full of mordant humor and literary zest, uses its ethnic and sexual specificity to illuminate the American experience.

Dr. Laura Leibman, associate professor of Engligh and Humanities at Reed College, will serve as discussion leader. Hillsdale Library, 1525 SW Sunset Blvd. For more information call 503-988-5388 or visit www.multcolib.org.