Ocean Vuong’s new novel, The Emperor of Gladness, revolves around the unexpected bond that develops between a vulnerable young man and an elderly woman who offers him a home and a chance to begin again. Vuong will discuss The Emperor of Gladness at the Nashville Public Library in a ticketed event co-hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 18.
Through smoldering honesty and formal inventiveness, the poems in Tiana Clark’s Scorched Earth insist on foregrounding the rough truths that shake loose during times of upheaval. Clark will discuss Scorched Earth at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 5.
When novelist Geraldine Brooks received the devastating phone call informing her that her husband, writer Tony Horwitz, had died unexpectedly, she found herself unable to grieve. In her new memoir, Memorial Days, Brooks recounts traveling to a remote island off the Tasmanian coast, seeking a space in which she can engage “a grief deep enough to reflect our love.” Brooks will discuss Memorial Days at a ticketed event at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville on February 13.
In her mesmerizing debut, Helen of Troy, 1993, poet Maria Zoccola merges the mythological and the modern, casting Helen of Troy as a restless housewife and mother in Sparta, Tennessee. Zoccola will discuss the book at Novel in Memphis on January 14.
In three recent poetry collections — Blas Falconer’s Rara Avis, Danielle Chapman’s Boxed Juice, and Todd Osborne’s Gatherer — our world’s inherent uncertainty takes center stage, fueling each poet’s inquiry into how our everyday lives (and our deeper internal longings) can survive the unknowable.
Nashville poet Didi Jackson’s My Infinity explores the relationship between grief and nature through a rich companionship with the work and life of visionary Swedish painter and mystic Hilma af Klint. Jackson will discuss My Infinity at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on November 17.
