I can’t forget my client’s final phone call
Thirty-six hours after my client was executed, I drove along the highway in the direction opposite the prison for my wisdom teeth extraction. The throb ballooning at the back of…
Memphis takes center stage in Richard Bausch’s Playhouse
In Richard Bausch’s latest novel, Playhouse, a Memphis theater company stages a performance of King Lear to celebrate a high-profile relaunch. As rehearsals begin, celebrities sign on, and with the…
A family learns about grace from a death row prisoner
…“I did not consider writing about it until several years after his death,” Suzanne Robertson said. Johnson had taken up writing poetry and a memoir in prison and asked for…
Book Excerpt: Walk Through Fire
FEBRUARY 24, 1978 FRIDAY 2:55 P.M. The whole world had turned upside down. Photo: Keith M. Sturges Police Sergeant Elton “Toad” Smith looked up to see what had struck him…
Novelist Charles Dodd White discusses a pivotal year in his life as a writer
…is now contemplating the future of his writing life. But his body of work so far — which includes two other novels, How Fire Runs (2020) and In the House…
Percival Everett plays with meaning and time in Dr. No
Percival Everett’s Dr. No is much ado about nothing. But in this novel, his 23rd, Everett explores the idea that perhaps nothing is something. Or everything. Everett’s recent novels include…
