How do you get 43 authors into a coffee shop at 6 a.m.?

What sounds like the setup for a bad joke actually happened a few weeks ago at Kos Kaffe, a popular Brooklyn café. Filmmaker Michael Maren solicited dozens of authors to make cameos in his debut feature, A Short History of Decay, about a 35-year-old man whose writer-girlfriend leaves him for her literary agent.

According to New York, Maren managed to snag some big names, including Elissa Schappell, John Burnham Schwartz, Gary Shteyngart, and Pulitzer Prize“winners Jennifer Egan and Michael Cunningham. No-shows included Paul Auster and Martin Amis, who had been cast as a barista.