Maurice Carlos Ruffin discusses his mesmerizing debut novel, We Cast a Shadow
Maurice Carlos Ruffin casts a satirical spell in his debut novel, We Cast A Shadow. Its unnamed narrator, driven by fierce love for his son, makes decisions that expose his family to the dangers of a world that may seem dystopian but in fact lies excruciatingly close to our own. Ruffin will appear at the 2019 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville on October 11-13.
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For more than three decades, Patricia McKissack has been writing children’s books that bring to life the stories, and the truth, of her ancestors
As she was coming of age in Nashville in the 1950s, there were many places award-winning children’s author Patricia McKissack was not allowed to go. She remembers hotels and restaurants that forbade African Americans entry, and movie theaters with a separate doorway in the alley for black patrons. The farthest reaches of the Grand Ole Opry’s balcony, known as the buzzard’s roost, was the only seating open to African Americans, McKissack recalls. She never partook: “My grandfather said that watermelons would bloom in January if any of his children went down there. ‘We don’t sit in no buzzard’s roost,’ he said. ‘We’re human beings, not buzzards.'”
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Min Jin Lee discusses identity, diaspora, and resistance in her novel Pachinko
Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, a finalist for the National Book Award, follows a Korean family through four generations of migration, hardship, and survival, telling their interlocking stories in vivid detail.
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Terry Klefstad chronicles the life and legacy of musician Bill Pursell
Crooked River City, Terry Wait Klefstad’s biography of musician and composer Bill Pursell, considers his influence on the Nashville Sound.
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The Gone Dead is a blues novel that’s out to summon ghosts
In Chanelle Benz’s debut novel The Gone Dead, a woman arrives in the Mississippi Delta to claim her inheritance — and stays to solve the mystery of her father’s death. Benz will discuss The Gone Dead at Novel in Memphis on June 25
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A naïve young woman is captivated by 1940s New York in Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls
With City of Girls, Elizabeth Gilbert delivers a perfect by-the-pool book, full of spectacle, glitz, and bygone glamour. Gilbert will appear at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville on June 17.
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