A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

Essays

Living in Eternity

By Wilmer Mills

June 8, 2011 For the past ten years or so it seems that all I think about and write about is Time, but something about learning that I have a form of liver cancer that is ultimately incurable has given me an amazing sense of clarity about the subject. I find myself standing on the back porch taking deep breaths, intoxicated by air and light and hope. Despite my bleak prognosis, I now see everything in front of me as a space of infinite possibility, within certain limitations, with a full and nourishing sense of Time.

All Quiet Now

By Eileen Sisk

May 16, 2011 Save for the pouring rain and a yapping miniature pinscher next door, it is eerily silent as I write this. Under normal circumstances, all manner of small engines would be revving—yes, even in a downpour—as I write, but not today. My next-door-neighbor, the one I called the Village Idiot, the one I turned into a Facebook phenomenon with posts about the constant noise of chainsaws and log splitters emanating from next door, is gone.

Tennessee Truffles

By Judy Loest

May 6, 2011 My mother never cared for mushrooms. “Like chewing snails,” she said. Even in healthier days, “Shew, God” was her response whenever someone mentioned mushrooms. Obviously, she agreed with Pliny who said that truffles are the excrement of the earth. But what can you expect? She grew up in Snowflake, Virginia, where mushrooms were disdained because they often sprouted from cow patties.

American Homer

By Clay Risen

April 13, 2011 Like his putative Greek forerunner, Shelby Foote was not a trained historian but a master storyteller. He wrote four well-received novels before embarking on The Civil War, including Shiloh, a fictional account of the 1862 battle. Long after completing his trilogy of history books, he continued to think of himself first and foremost as a fiction writer: “I think of myself as a novelist who wrote a three-volume history of the Civil War. I don’t think it’s a novel, but I think it’s certainly by a novelist,” he said.

Entirely His Own Man

By Hampton Sides

April 11, 2011 Shelby Foote was the first writer I ever met, and the only writer I ever personally knew until I left my hometown of Memphis and went off to college. And so my image of what a writer was supposed to look like, sound like, and smell like, came first and foremost from him. I vaguely sensed even as a high-school teenager that I wanted to be a writer, but watching him, studying him, I couldn’t see how I could get there. I couldn’t see myself wielding a quill pen. My Southern accent was strong enough, but lacked Shelby’s beautiful custardy lilts and Delta diphthongs. And I knew I could never pull off a masterpiece of a beard like his.

Out of the Box

By Margaret Renkl

March 29, 2011 In a bookstore, scale matters. Educated staff matter. Community matters. A bookstore is not simply a place to buy books; it’s also a place to find kindred souls. If you already know what you want to read, Amazon is almost impossible to resist. Buying a book online is easy, it’s fast, and it’s usually cheaper than the book in the store. But it’s also a lonesome experience. You run into none of those passionate readers who can be counted on to press a much-loved book into the hands of that stranger standing before the shelf, wavering. At Amazon, you gain nothing from the experience of veteran booksellers, who can tell you with confidence, “Michiko totally blew this one.” Buying a book online is effortless, but if you need a book that will change your life, Amazon can’t help you. No search field is built to answer the question, “What book will articulate these inchoate fears keeping me awake at three a.m.?”

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