Book Reviews | Chapter 16

Rushing Ahead

Sorority recruitment proves to be an unlikely catalyst for change in Lisa Patton’s Rush

By Kathryn Justice Leache | August 15, 2018

Lisa Patton’s Rush is a deep dive into sorority culture and a powerful treatise on the importance of extricating what’s genuinely valuable from a matrix of history, tradition, and social torpor-and leaving the rest. Patton will appear at Novel in Memphis on August 21, at Books-A-Million in Jackson on August 22, at Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 23, at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on September 20, and at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

An Emotional Realist

Patchwork surveys decades of Bobbie Ann Mason’s fiction, nonfiction, and interviews

By Peggy Burch | August 14, 2018

Patchwork collects important work by Bobbie Ann Mason, whose short stories, novels, and memoir were inspired by the people, land, and language of her native Western Kentucky. Mason will appear at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on September 6, and at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, which will be held in Nashville October 12-14

A Time of War and Treachery

Brenda Rickman Vantrease takes readers back to the Civil War—the English one

By Faye Jones | August 13, 2018

In Brenda Rickman Vantrease’s new novel, The Queen’s Promise, three women must make dangerous choices as England collapses into civil war. Vantrease will appear at Parnassus Books on August 19, and at the Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14. Both events are in Nashville.

Paternalist or Hero?

Joseph Crespino’s Atticus Finch is the biography of an iconic character

By Aram Goudsouzian | August 8, 2018

In Atticus Finch: The Biography, historian Joseph Crespino explains the construction and evolution of Harper Lee’s famous character. Crespino will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza and the Nashville Public Library. Festival events are free and open to the public.

Right Ho, Penelope

In Penelope Lemon: Game On!, Inman Majors summons the comic spirit of P.G. Wodehouse

By Sean Kinch | August 7, 2018

The hero of Inman Majors’s new comic novel, Penelope Lemon: Game On!, is at a crossroads. Divorced and broke, she must use all her cunning and fortitude to start over—and maybe have some fun along the way. Majors will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on August 13, at Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 14, at Novel in Memphis on August 16, and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

Let the Ruin Come Down

In Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine, Kevin Wilson plumbs the tragicomic depths of misbegotten lives

By Ed Tarkington | August 6, 2018

A widow welcomes home her drug-addicted son after the demise of his rock band. A single mother tries to talk her son out of dressing up for Halloween as his dead brother. A chain-smoking priest attempts to cure an altar boy who faints during Communion. With the stories in Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine, Sewanee fiction writer Kevin Wilson continues his tragicomic exploration of the dark side of domesticity.

I Gotta Sing!

By Alice Faye Duncan
WaterBrook
40 pages
$14.99

“A whole barnyard makes noise ‘in the Spirit of joy’ throughout this raucous picture book, a sweetly heartwarming sing-along by Duncan. Kellam conveys comfort and happiness as the loved ones reflect sunny enthusiasm in this gladdening rendition of the Black American religious folk song ‘I’m Goin’a Sing When the Spirit Says Sing.’”

~Publishers Weekly