Mississippi Delta Blues
W. Ralph Eubanks chronicles a long and brutal war on poor people in When It’s Darkness on the Delta.
Book Reviews
The Devil Inside Me
In Cipher, Jeremy B. Jones, a professor at Western Carolina University, examines his ancestor’s encoded diaries as a means of uncovering his own hidden identity. Jones will be a featured author at ETSU’s Emerging Writers Series on February 9.
The Return of the Theological Novel
Brandon Taylor’s readers expect his novels to coalesce around deep philosophical thought. In his latest, Minor Black Figures, ideas about God function as the engine of the book.
Pulling the Loose Thread
Boss Brooks is a decidedly untidy Southern story that is both sensational — a small-town Tennessee banker fakes his own death using a corpse stolen on a dark winter night — and quietly devastating, especially for the family he left behind. His granddaughter Kathy Bingham Turner spent years researching what she and co-author Leon Alligood characterize as “The Lie,” a carefully orchestrated deception involving friends, family, and a community willing to believe the story it was told. Turner and Alligood will discuss Boss Brooks at Appalachian WordFest in Sevierville on February 28.
Hard to Pin Down
In What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome, Jonathan Bernstein tries to get a handle on the restless genius of Nashville-born musician Justin Townes Earle. Bernstein will appear at Grimey’s New and Preloved Music in Nashville on January 16.
‘A Beacon of What Is’
Three recent poetry collections — Lou Turner’s Twin Lead Lines, Connie Jordan Green’s Nameless as the Minnows, and Richard Collins’ Stone Nest — skillfully utilize a variety of Tennessee settings, including the Nashville music world, Oak Ridge in its early years, and a rocky mountaintop in Sewanee.
