White supremacists infiltrate an East Tennessee town in Charles Dodd White’s How Fire Runs
…they accelerate, fueled by powerful confrontation with the violent racism and environmental hazards that endanger our current national atmosphere. White holds nothing back, and these scenes spark and blaze. As…
Memphis Mayhem is an insider’s history of the city’s sound
Ah, Memphis, the Southern capital of sin and song — “the old Delta synonym,” as Eudora Welty dubbed it, “for pleasure, trouble, and shame.” The sin might have been as…
In David James Poissant’s Lake Life, a family’s farewell to their summer home leads to traumatic reckoning
…North Carolina. For decades this unprepossessing structure has been the repository of happy memories for the Starlings — Lisa and Richard, and their sons Michael and Thad. When the parents…
Sarah Smarsh’s She Come by It Natural pays unique tribute to Dolly Parton
…short book becomes an intriguing snapshot of one writer’s engagement with a fraught year of rapidly shifting cultural turmoil. Each installment enfolds Parton’s life — past and present — into…
Chris Hamby recounts miners’ fight for health benefits in Soul Full of Coal Dust
…the legal battles disease-stricken miners waged against their wealthy employers for modest monthly payments of $500 to $800. The weapons lawyers used when they worked for companies like Massey Coal…
Writers of color consider what it means to belong in the South
…character, although it sometimes shifts in appearance. Segregated ‘Miam-ah’ becomes Miami. The Tennessee that one has escaped from becomes the pain that one will endure just to be home. The…
