Chapter 16 - Part 123

You Get What You Need

Mary Gauthier delves into her life and art in Saved by a Song

By Jacqueline Zeisloft | June 30, 2021

In Saved by a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting, Grammy-nominated folk musician Mary Gauthier unpacks her ideas around “what makes a song matter.” This investigation takes us through Gauthier’s personal narrative as a queer woman, a survivor of addiction, and an artist who reaches deep into the wounds of her childhood to reckon with her past traumas through song. Gauthier will discuss the book at a ticketed virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on July 6.

Time Travel with McCarthy

An outdoor homage to Suttree and Knoxville’s past

By Maria Browning | June 29, 2021

On July 8 at Knoxville’s Lakeshore Park, “Suttree’s Knoxville: A Hymn to the Past in Film & Music” will combine live music, readings from Cormac McCarthy’s novel Suttree, and a film of archival footage to evoke a sense of the city as it was 70 years ago.

Tales of a Preservationist

A new collection of essays highlights Silas House’s life and work

By Emily Choate | June 28, 2021

The essays in Silas House: Exploring an Appalachian Writer’s Work reflect the high degree of respect and adoration that House has gained among his peers for his novels, music journalism, and plays, as well as his activism. Editor Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt gathers a thoughtful group of Appalachian scholars and literary writers to analyze House’s body of work.

Sex and Other Sins

I kept sinning despite my best efforts

By Debra Coleman Jeter | June 25, 2021

As soon as I was old enough to know I should be good, I knew I was not. Much of this fear and guilt came from my grandmother, whom I called Meme. I remember seeing the same fear, much intensified, on her face when, much later, she lay dying. She could not be consistently good either.

Archaic Snailfishing in Nashville

Book Excerpt: Mastodons to Mississippians: Adventures in Nashville’s Deep Past

By Aaron Deter-Wolf and Tanya M. Peres | June 24, 2021

Mastodons to Mississippians: Adventures in Nashville’s Deep Past by Aaron Deter-Wolf and Tanya M. Peres explores the “archaeological roots of Music City.” The book will be published by Vanderbilt University Press in August 2021.

Stranded in Time

The past and present collide in Michael Amos Cody’s story collection

By Tina Chambers | June 23, 2021

The stories in Michael Amos Cody’s A Twilight Reel are peopled with complicated characters — lost, angry, grieving, lonely, violent, and filled with regret, each one searching for some kind of peace. The collection conjures up a small town poised on the brink of a new day, dragging the chains of buried secrets and sorrows firmly behind it.

Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America's Violent Past

By Tore C. Olsson
St. Martin's Press
288 pages
$30

“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