Joan Silber’s characters stumble through work, family, and romance in Secrets of Happiness
In seven interlocking chapters, Joan Silber’s novel Secrets of Happiness dramatizes the lives of characters at crossroads that force reassessments of values. Silber will discuss the novel at a virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 6.
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Stephanie Danler’s memoir disrupts the usual narrative structures found in stories of addiction
In Stray, Stephanie Danler doesn’t just look directly at her own childhood trauma, but tracks the borders and shapes that trauma forms in her adult life. Danler will discuss the book at a virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 4.
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Blood and Treasure chronicles Daniel Boone’s role in settling Kentucky
In Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin tell the story of Boone’s role in pushing American settlement west of the Appalachians. Drury and Clavin will discuss the book at a virtual event hosted by Novel in Memphis on May 13.
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Josephine Caminos Oría’s Sobremesa celebrates family and food
Sobremesa, the second book by Argentine-American author Josephine Caminos Oría, is a delicious paean to her roots and to the culture that informs her life’s work. Oría will discuss the book at a virtual event hosted by Novel in Memphis on May 6.
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Anjali Enjeti considers her identity in an evolving region in Southbound
In the final pages of Southbound, Anjali Enjeti’s collection of essays on identity, race, and Southern politics, the author poses one simple but thorny question that looms like a ghost over much of the work: “Who am I?”
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In The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames, a daughter confronts her mother’s Dickensian childhood
Growing up, Justine Cowan struggled with her demanding, ambitious mother, Eileen, a talented pianist who claimed noble Welsh ancestry. In her memoir, The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames, Cowan explores the grim truth of her mother’s origins and comes to understand their fraught relationship.
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