Exploring the idea of an American national literature, Jason Richards finds a complex play of imitations
In Imitation Nation: Red, White, and Blackface in Early and Antebellum US Literature, Rhodes College professor Jason Richards brings theoretical sophistication to close readings of some well-known and not so well-known texts in American literature, showing the complexities of cultural imitation before the Civil War.
Read more
A neglected girl finds a home in Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s The War I Finally Won
The War I Finally Won is the eagerly awaited sequel to Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s Newbery Honor-winning middle-grade novel, The War That Saved My Life. Bradley will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 30.
Read more
Poets Jesse Graves and William Wright merge perspectives in Specter Mountain
Throughout Specter Mountain, Jesse Graves and William Wright’s collaborative poetry collection, the mountain landscape itself emerges as a powerful, haunting source of revelation. The result is a unique contribution to Appalachian literature.
Read more
Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion depicts a feminist tussle between generations
When a recent college graduate goes to work for Faith Frank, a feminist legend, she undergoes an initiation into her mentor’s world-and her own conscience. Meg Wolitzer will discuss The Female Persuasion at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 19.
Read more
Amy Hempel finds truth in fiction sentence by sentence
Amy Hempel’s fiction offers up an almost musical experience, one where rhythm and pulse seem to affect the reader in tandem with the goings-on of the story itself. Hempel will give a free public reading at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on April 19.
Read more
In a new essay collection, Aram Goudsouzian and Charles W. McKinney Jr. consider race relations in the Bluff City
In An Unseen Light: Black Struggles for Freedom in Memphis, Tennessee, a collection of scholarly essays, editors Aram Goudsouzian and Charles W. McKinney Jr. look at the Bluff City from emancipation through the turbulent 1960s and into the present. They will discuss An Unseen Light at two Memphis events: at the National Civil Rights Museum on April 17 and Novel on May 15.
Read more
