A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

Book Reviews

Sex and the City

By Liz Garrigan

June 14, 2011 Maureen Coughlin—an underdog oppressed by her own low ambition and everyone else’s belief that she’ll never accomplish anything beyond waiting tables—sees something that was never meant for her eyes: either a homoerotic encounter between unlikely lovers, or an only vaguely consensual act meant to satisfy a debt. By the time the answer becomes clear, the 29-year-old protagonist has found herself involved in a murder investigation whose chief suspect is rich, powerful, and a shoo-in for the U.S. Senate. Bill Loehfelm’s The Devil She Knows is a consuming thriller that has it all: sex, politics, class warfare, and an unlikely hero impossible not to root for. Loehfelm will sign books at 6 p.m. on June 14 at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis.

Book Excerpt: Adam Ross’s Ladies and Gentlemen

By Adam Ross

June 9, 2011 In the fall of 1980, my parents enrolled me in seventh grade at the Trinity School—a tony, Episcopal private school in Manhattan that was all boys until ninth grade. So my two best new friends, Abe Herman and Kyle Duckworth, were thirteen- year- olds on the cusp of, among other things, coeducation.

What Endures

By Pablo Tanguay

June 7, 2011 In a career that spans forty-five years and includes twenty-some books of poetry and every major poetry prize, from the Pulitzer to the National Book Award, Charles Wright has kept his thematic lens remarkably focused. A typical poem begins with the speaker in his backyard, describing the landscape or the memory of a landscape, and the resulting metaphor then ignites a philosophical meditation, often concerning theological matters. For most poets, such thematic or stylistic repetition over the course of half a century would lead to unbearably boring poems. But Wright is in a class almost alone for his ability to make fresh, wildly inventive metaphors from the stuff of the everyday, natural world.

True Myth

By Joe Nolan

June 3, 2011 Tony Tost has no interest in debunking the myth of the Man in Black. In fact, his new book depends on it. Instead of relying on a hackneyed fact-versus-fiction structure, Johnny Cash’s American Recordings (33 1/3) gives itself over completely to Johnny Cash’s outlaw/prophet mystique. The book’s specific goal is to get to the truths that lie past the treeline of the merely factual. Beyond the cavernous voice, poetic songwriting, and towering stage presence, Tost argues, Johnny Cash’s single greatest artistic accomplishment was the creation of “the mythic version of himself.” In fact, for Tost, the “mythic self” is the single greatest creation America has given the world, for him, Cash, the country, and American Recordings are forever entwined.

Another Novel, At Long Last

By Pablo Tanguay

May 31, 2011 James Still’s final manuscript, penned over the last fifteen years of his life and with him in the hospital room when he died a decade ago, has finally been published. Edited by Silas House, Chinaberry is a moving, gorgeously written coming-of-age novel and a fine capstone to the career of one of Appalachia’s most influential writers.

An Unlikely Love Story

By Maria Browning

May 26, 2011 In Chinaberry Sidewalks, a memoir of his impoverished, violent childhood, acclaimed Nashville songwriter Rodney Crowell shows how love can flourish in the most unlikely circumstances. Crowell will discuss the book at a taping of “A Guitar and a Pen Old Time Radio hour with Robert Hicks” on May 26 at 6 p.m. The taping takes place at Puckett’s Grocery and Restaurant in Franklin.

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