Fiction | Chapter 16

Coming of Age at the Crossroads

Susan Gregg Gilmore’s second novel takes its protagonist through the racial turbulence of 1960s Nashville

By Margaret Renkl | August 27, 2010

August 27, 2010 When Susan Gregg Gilmore returned to Nashville after thirty years, she turned a novelist’s eye on her own hometown. The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove tells the story of a daughter of privilege—who grows up on what’s left of an antebellum plantation where thoroughbred horses were once raised—at a time of profound social change. Coming of age in a house where a deeply unhappy, alcoholic mother terrorizes not only the servants but her own children, Bezellia struggles to find a way to live in a world where her sole reliable sources of love are the people who are paid to care for her. Susan Gregg Gilmore will read from The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove at Carpe Librum Booksellers in Knoxville on August 28 at 2 p.m.

Beneath All the Sex and Violence

Eric Jerome Dickey talks with Chapter 16 about the hard work that goes into his stylish thrillers

By Maria Browning | August 17, 2010

August 17, 2010 Memphis native Eric Jerome Dickey has been turning out fast-paced, sexy, wildly popular novels since 1996. His latest, Tempted by Trouble, puts a timely twist on the thriller genre with a protagonist driven to crime by the economic downturn. Prior to his book signings this month in Memphis and Nashville, Dickey answered questions from Chapter 16 about the work that goes into his remarkably successful books, and about the mysterious appeal of his violent, morally compromised characters.

Tell Me a Story of Deep Delight

Algonquin’s new collection inspires a troublesome question: is Southern literature going the way of the slamming screen door?

By Susannah Felts | August 4, 2010

August 4, 2010 In its annual anthology, New Stories from the South 2010: The Year’s Best, Algonquin Books has, as usual, brought out a strong collection of compelling short stories. Too bad so few of them are distinctly, or even faintly, Southern.

A Captured Mind

In his new novel, David Madden explores the psychological consequences of witnessing a terrible crime

By Susannah Felts | July 28, 2010

July 28, 2010 Based on plot summary alone, Abducted by Circumstance, a new novel by acclaimed Knoxville-born author David Madden, sounds like a poolside page-turner. Yet this quiet and finely crafted novel is less a psychological thriller than an engrossing, complex exploration of a troubled woman’s identity. It is also a daring narrative experiment in point of view.

Killer Dreams

An aspiring author heads to Killer Nashville, a conference designed to help unpublished writers land a book contract

By Chris Scott | July 23, 2010

July 23, 2010 Killer Nashville began in 2006 when Clay Stafford, a Franklin-based writer and film producer, threw a conference together in about four months, given a last-minute boost by the attendance of bestselling suspense-author Carol Higgins Clark. Stafford soon had a successful series, the goal of most mystery writers, on his hands. Now an international affair, Killer Nashville still pulls in big names—this year’s guest of honor is Jeffery Deaver—and offers four tracks: writing, forensics, marketing, and a fan track for public book signings and author events, as well as a contest, the Claymore Dagger Award, to honor an unpublished work worthy of publication. Chapter 16 contributor Chris Scott gives an inside look at the conference, which this year will be held August 20-22.

Back Where We Come From

Steve Yarbrough explores the mystery of memory and the complexity of the past

By Ed Tarkington | July 21, 2010

July 21, 2010 Cast against the dark history of the 1962 Ole Miss Riot, Steve Yarbrough’s Safe from the Neighbors is both an engrossing mystery novel and a quietly incisive exploration of how even the seemingly remote aspects of our lives are shaped by the tides of history. Steve Yarbrough will give a free public reading at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference on July 21 at 8:15 p.m.

Isabel and the Invisible World

By Alan Lightman, illustrated by Ramona Kaulitzki
MIT Kids Press
40 pages
$18.99

“In simple, engaging language, complemented by luminous artwork from best-selling illustrator Ramona Kaulitzki, author and physicist Alan Lightman unveils the hidden world of light waves—the ones you can see and the ones you can’t.”

~ the publisher