A Piercing Wail
FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: Reckoning by V (formerly Eve Ensler) asks readers to understand what violence does to women and anyone who is marginalized.
Book Reviews
Ghosts and Strangers
In Alice Austen’s debut novel, 33 Place Brugmann, residents of a Brussels apartment building resist the German occupation by preserving art, beauty, and kindness. Austen will discuss 33 Place Brugmann at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 13.
Song of My Songs
Daniel Black’s ninth book, Isaac’s Song, is a novel about Black gay becoming in the 1980s. It dunks us into the colorful life and language of Isaac Swinton, carrying us through recollections of his rigid childhood in Missouri and life in Chicago amidst the AIDS crisis.
Sisterhood
Bridgett Davis’ second family memoir, Love, Rita, creates a vivid portrait of her sister, a woman of resourcefulness, perseverance, and elegance whose life was cut short by illness and the harmful effects of systemic racism.
What the Long Poem Says About Me
Through smoldering honesty and formal inventiveness, the poems in Tiana Clark’s Scorched Earth insist on foregrounding the rough truths that shake loose during times of upheaval. Clark will discuss Scorched Earth at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 5.
Grassroots Revolution
Elaine Weiss’ Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools That Built the Civil Rights Movement details the network of unofficial schools aimed at helping Black citizens pass literacy tests before the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Weiss will discuss her book at the Nashville Public Library on March 6 and the East Tennessee History Center in Knoxville on May 20.
