Book Reviews | Chapter 16

Goodbye, Good Luck, I Love You All

By Ed Tarkington

July 31, 2012

July 31, 2012 As a novelist, Ben Fountain’s intentions are far from subtle. He is going for broke in his new novel, bringing together a variety of pressing contemporary themes in a story that is as emotionally stirring as it is both chastening and bizarrely funny. With Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Fountain has produced what may eventually stand as the definitive American Iraq War novel. Fountain will read from and discuss the book at at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

Southern Belle With a Cause

By Sarah Norris

July 27, 2012

July 27, 2012 Set in 1875, during Reconstruction, Taylor M. Polites’s The Rebel Wife features an action-laced plot that includes hidden money, a mysterious plague, fire, gunshots, and an ensemble cast of personalities with violently conflicting agendas. At the heart of the story is Augusta (Gus) Branson, the widowed rebel herself, who represents the irrevocable, life-altering changes Reconstruction wrought for everyone involved. Taylor M. Polites will read from and discuss The Rebel Wife at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

Upon a Hill in Tennessee

By Michael Ray Taylor

July 26, 2012

July 26, 2012 David George Haskell, professor of biology at the University of the South in Sewanee, spent a year carefully observing a small patch of Tennessee forest. His book about the experience, The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature, is a scientist’s meditation that rises to the philosophical level of Annie Dillard’s A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Thoreau’s Walden. David Haskell will discuss The Forest Unseen at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

Inside the Nightmare

By Lyda Phillips

July 24, 2012

July 24, 2012 In The Baker’s Daughter Sarah McCoy delivers an intimate and nuanced view of people trapped in the nightmare culture of Aryan supremacy and draws an intriguing parallel to the current debate over immigration. McCoy will discuss The Baker’s Daughter at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

History Begins at Home

By Todd Dills

July 20, 2012

July 20, 2012 When Joel F. Baker Jr. launched into what became a three-and-some-decades-long research project on the history of his family on his mother’s side, writing a book was most certainly the farthest thing from his thoughts. He was in the seventh grade, after all. But he was driven by a curiosity that never waned in subsequent years—a curiosity that girds the upbeat spirit of The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation, a rare hybrid of oral history, traditional chronicle, and memoir. In it Baker brings alive both antebellum and post-bellum life on a quintessentially Middle Tennessee plantation, tightly weaving throughout the quality of urgency that has characterized his life’s pursuit. Baker will discuss The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

The Old Grief of Blood

By Ed Tarkington

July 19, 2012

July 19, 2012 In Tom Franklin’s latest novel, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter—the novel’s title is derived from an old method for teaching elementary school students how to spell Mississippi—simultaneously paradisiacal and perilous forests form the thematic center of a compelling literary thriller that skillfully blends the conventions of crime fiction with sensitive examinations of Faulkner Country’s inescapable concerns: race, love, family secrets, and the twin demons of longing and regret. Franklin will discuss Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14, 2012, at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

“I recommend Red Dead’s History unreservedly not only to fans of the iconic video game, but also to anyone who wants to understand the riotousness — from Wild West gunslingers to Jim Crow to lynching — that darkened our past, and which continues to influence our culture. Olsson’s prose is graceful, his analysis profound. This is history at its most accessible and exciting.”

~Peter Cozzens, award-winning author of A Brutal Reckoning