On March 28, 2016, Jim Ridley collapsed in his office at the Nashville Scene. His heart had failed. For days after his death, you could search the national trending topics on Twitter and find the name Jim Ridley there alongside the likes of Star Wars and Bruce Springsteen. In June 2018, Vanderbilt University Press will bring out a collection of Ridley’s film reviews edited by Steve Haruch.
Mark Greaney’s famous assassin, Court Gentry, is back in Agent in Place. This time he’s working on behalf of a group of Syrian expats to secure the Syrian president’s mistress so they can use her to bring down the president’s regime. But the expats’ plan goes awry when it’s discovered the mistress has a baby–the Syrian president’s only male heir–hidden away in a Damascus safe house. Agent in Place will be published on February 20, 2018.
Ever since her mother died in a skydiving accident when Clancy was young, Clancy’s father has watched her like a hawk. Between her dad’s rules and her boyfriend’s protectiveness, she’s longing for an escape. Then she meets Denny. Freefall Summer is coming in April from Nashville’s Tracy Barrett.
Home of the blues, birthplace of rock & roll, soul-music capital—Memphis has been essential to American music. In Memphis Rent Party, coming March 6 from Bloomsbury, Robert Gordon heads behind the scenes to the people and places that music history has yet to record.
The Heronry is the eleventh collection of poems by celebrated Nashville poet Mark Jarman. The book will be released on January 10, and Jarman will give a public reading from it at Vanderbilt University on February 23. Here’s an early look: two poems.
Kevin Wilson’s second novel, Perfect Little World, will be released on January 24, and he will give readings from it at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on January 24 and Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 26. In this excerpt, Dr. Preston Grind meets a wealthy benefactor with an idea for a research experiment to prove the truth of the old adage that it takes a village to raise a child.
