Book Reviews

May 31, 2013 Raymond L. Atkins’s third novel and winner of the 2011 Ferrol Sams Award for Fiction, Camp Redemption, tells the story of Early Willingham, a mild-mannered mechanic with a fondness for Schlitz malt liquor, and his clairvoyant sister, Ivey. Filled with colorful characters and quaint locales, Camp Redemption is a gentle comic meditation on the surprising things that can happen when we reach out a hand to those in need. Raymond L. Atkins will discuss the novel at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on June 6, 2013, at 5:30 p.m.

May 23, 2013 Beth Hoffman’s new novel, Looking for Me, delves into territory that’s very similar to her bestselling 2010 debut novel, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, with female protagonists who are forced to reckon with familial loss. Both books take place in the South and feature chivalry, friendly small talk, iced tea, good manners, and respect for hard work and older generations. Hoffman will discuss Looking for Me at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on May 29, 2013, at 7 p.m.

May 22, 2013 Legions of historians have written narratives of Civil War battles bristling with footnotes and rigorous research. They would never presume to include the principal figures’ real-time thoughts or speculate about any conversations between them. Civil War novelist Jeff Shaara, on the other hand, has the freedom to invent. Though his books are also grounded in historical sources, he gives his characters life and includes richly detailed scenes, recreating the guns’ thunder, the ringing ears, the sweat mixing with dirt. Shaara will discuss A Chain of Thunder, his newest novel, on May 26, 2013, at 3 p.m. at the East Tennessee Historical Center in Knoxville.

May 17, 2013 It can be a little disorienting to pick up a detective thriller only to discover that the identity of the homicidal maniac is no mystery. To find, in fact, that the killer is making a movie about his serial crimes, directing an imaginary crew to pull back on this decapitated head, move in tighter on that drowning body, etc. But, hey, this is Hollywood, where backstabbing producers must die, and violently. Heywood Gould will discuss and sign copies of Green Light for Murder, the first in a series of Detective Tommy Veasy mysteries, at Mysteries & More in Nashville on May 18 at 2 p.m.

May 16, 2013 “The past keeps happening to us,” writes Bill Cheng in his debut novel, Southern Cross the Dog. “No matter who we are or how far we get away, it keeps happening to us.” These words are potent, both for their echo of Faulkner’s famous dictum (“The past is never dead”) and for the fact that their author is a Chinese-American New Yorker. Despite having never set foot in Mississippi, Cheng has staked a formidable claim in the heart of Faulkner Country. Cheng will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 22, 2013, at 6:30 p.m.

May 15, 2013 Anthony Marra’s A Constellation of Vital Phenomena puts a human face on the dehumanizing forces of war, revealing the ways in which the lives of people in a small mountain village in Chechnya are overturned by fifteen years of conflict with the Russian Federation. Memorials to the disappeared are a form of defiance, and even a single life spared from obliteration feels like a moral victory. Anthony Marra will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville at 2 p.m. on May 18, 2013.