Ed Tarkington

August 19, 2014 Since the publication of his first story collection some twenty years ago, Tony Earley has built a body of work defined by extraordinary insight into the comedy, pathos, and wonder of the commonplace. In his new collection, Mr. Tall, Earley widens the scope of his frequently hilarious, reliably lyrical stories. Earley will discuss Mr. Tall at Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 26, 2014, at 6:30 p.m., and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 10-12, 2014.

July 31, 2014 Lee Smith’s literary gifts make her distinctly qualified to take on the treacherous task of reimagining the last days of Zelda Fitzgerald, the muse behind The Great Gatsby, whose tragic life and more tragic end have haunted readers for generations. Smith will appear at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 10-12, 2014. All festival events are free and open to the public.

July 17, 2014 Thanks to an unexpected bump from comedian Stephen Colbert, Edan Lepucki’s debut novel has been lifted up from the crowded field of post-apocalyptic novels to wide notice and acclaim. A unique take on the form, California focuses less on the sensational aspects of Armageddon than on the complications of domesticity in a crumbling world. Lepucki will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on July 29, 2014, at 6:30 p.m.

July 8, 2014 With Fourth of July Creek, Smith Henderson has delivered a novel of enormous range and emotional intensity. One of the most buzzed-about debuts of the season, the book introduces Pete Snow, a troubled social worker in rural Montana, and Benjamin Pearl, a boy raised in the wilderness by his paranoid-survivalist father, Jeremiah. Henderson will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on July 17, 2014, at 6:30 p.m.

June 5, 2014 Jim Stegner, the protagonist of Peter Heller’s new novel, The Painter, is an archetypal American individualist in the tradition of Ernest Hemingway and Jackson Pollock. Finding himself in the midst of a deadly conflict that puts him at odds with both the police and a pair of vengeful outlaws, Stegner still somehow manages to create art that evokes in his audience “everything they know and feel and love, and all the things they don’t know, and some of the things they hope.” Peter Heller will discuss The Painter at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 12, 2014, at 6:30 p.m.

May 27, 2014 “The soul is liquid, and slow to evaporate,” writes Elizabeth McCracken. “The body’s a bucket and liable to slosh. Grieving, haunted, heartbroken, obsessed: your friends will tell you to cheer up. What they really mean is dry up. But it isn’t a matter of will. Only time and light will do the job.” The metaphor is typical of the stories that make up Thunderstruck, a collection of achingly honest, haunting, and often darkly comic tales. McCracken will discuss the book on June 3, 2014, at 6:30 p.m. at Parnassus Books in Nashville.