Martin and Ruby, the father-daughter tandem at the center of Lee Conell’s debut novel, The Party Upstairs, appear content living in the basement of an elegant New York apartment building. Over the course of a single day, however, their façades crumble, and hidden emotions explode to the surface.
Anyone with an interest in the Appalachian South is familiar with the Foxfire program, dedicated to documenting and preserving the traditional folkways of the region. Oral traditions have always been a major focus of the project, and Foxfire Story puts them center stage, bringing together a selection of tales, jokes, anecdotes, oral histories, songs, and sayings drawn from material collected over 50 years.
Assisted by journalist and historian Preston Lauterbach, 94-year-old Annye C. Anderson describes growing up in Memphis with her stepbrother, Robert Johnson. This detail-rich oral history recounts the famous bluesman from his earliest childhood to his death at 27, along with the long legal battle for his music that followed.
In The Vinyl Underground, a young adult novel by Nashville writer and musician Rob Rufus, 17-year-old Ronnie Bingham is reeling from the death of his beloved older brother in Vietnam and terrified of following in his footsteps.
Fortune telling — through tarot cards, palm readings, or other means of divination — was a way of life for Miracelle and her mother, whose bond forms the heart of Karen Salyer McElmurray’s novel, Wanting Radiance. After years on her own, Miracelle sets her sights on the past, including her mother’s unsolved murder.
In W.M. Akers’ Westside Saints, set in an alternative version of 1920s New York, detective Gilda Carr must solve mysteries surrounding the appearance of the dead, including her late mother.
