Book Reviews

Kristen Radtke’s Seek You explores the pain and pleasure of solitude in a time of isolation. Radtke will appear at the online 2021 Southern Festival of Books.

Punch Me Up to the Gods by Brian Broome is a Black, gay, coming-of-age memoir. Broome, a screenwriter and poet, recounts his formative years in Ohio and his subsequent escape. Against the backdrop of Ronald Reagan’s conservative America, the book presents scenes of Black boy initiation into the order of masculinity. Broome will appear at the online 2021 Southern Festival of Books.

In Late City, Robert Olen Butler imagines a deathbed dialogue between God and a 115-year-old man who happens to be America’s last surviving veteran of World War I. Butler will discuss Late City at the online 2021 Southern Festival of Books.

In Shruti Swamy’s novel The Archer, a young dancer named Vidya explores her identity as an artist and as a woman. She both conforms to and defies the traditional expectations of her gender and class, all while grappling with the desires of her body and mind and the raw ache of abandonment after the loss of her mother. Swamy will appear at a virtual session of the 2021 Southern Festival of Books.

Erica Waters’ second novel, The River Has Teeth, tells the story of one girl’s search for her missing older sister and a witch’s quest to hide the monster she believes is responsible for the disappearance. Waters will appear at the online 2021 Southern Festival of Books.

From haunting, short-form meditations on loss to a thrilling, suspenseful novella that revives an indelible antihero, In the Valley offers a distillation of Ron Rash’s storytelling mastery at its best. Rash will discuss In the Valley at the online 2021 Southern Festival of Books on October 9.