Chapter 16 - Part 15

Man is Clay

Smith Henderson’s haunting debut novel introduces a troubled Montana social worker and his mission to rescue children from peril—including his own

By Ed Tarkington | July 8, 2014

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.

Craft, Then Faith, Then Letting Go

With The Painter, acclaimed adventure writer and novelist Peter Heller delivers a soulful page-turner

By Ed Tarkington | June 5, 2014

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.

Only Time and Light Will Do the Job

Thunderstruck, Elizabeth McCracken’s first story collection in two decades, elegantly illuminates the interstices of love and loss

By Ed Tarkington | May 27, 2014

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.

Everyone Wanting Only the Best

In The Vacationers, Emma Straub’s characters head to Mallorca amid simmering conflict

By Ed Tarkington | April 15, 2014

April 14, 2014 Just as Jim and Franny Post prepare to embark on a two-week jaunt to Mallorca—a final family trip before their youngest child leaves for college—their perfect life falls apart. Emma Straub will discuss The Vacationers on April 17, 2014, at 7 p.m. in Buttrick Hall, Room 102, on the Vanderbilt University campus in Nashville. The event is free and open to the public.

It’s Not Even Past

In A Late Encounter with the Civil War, Michael Kreyling continues his exploration of collective memory

By Ed Tarkington | March 12, 2014

March 12, 2014 In A Late Encounter With the Civil War Vanderbilt English professor Michael Kreyling continues the examination of collective memory he began in 2010 with The South That Wasn’t There. By examining a variety of sources high and low, Kreyling argues persuasively that—channeling Faulkner’s famous aphorism—“The past is never dead—it’s not even past.” Michael Kreyling will introduce the James Franco film version of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying at Vanderbilt University’s Sarratt Cinema on March 13, 2014, at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.

A Deliberate Life

In The Adventures of Henry Thoreau, Michael Sims follows along the path of self-discovery that led to Walden Pond

By Ed Tarkington | February 24, 2014

February 24, 2014 “In the decades since first encountering Walden in my late teens, I had often glimpsed Thoreau as the bearded sage of literature, natural history, or civil liberties,” writes Michael Sims. “I had seldom met the awkward young man who loved to sing, who ran a private school and applied his engineering skills to the pencil business, who popped popcorn and performed magic tricks for Ralph Waldo Emerson’s children, faced his own illnesses and the deaths of loved ones, and tried to make it as a freelance writer in New York City.” In The Adventures of Henry Thoreau, Sims offers a portrait of a young man who went on to mold both American literature and American identity. Sims will appear at the Jean and Alexander Heard Library on the Vanderbilt University campus in Nashville on April 11, 2014, with a book-signing at 6 p.m. and a free public address at 7 p.m.

I Gotta Sing!

By Alice Faye Duncan
WaterBrook
40 pages
$14.99

“A whole barnyard makes noise ‘in the Spirit of joy’ throughout this raucous picture book, a sweetly heartwarming sing-along by Duncan. Kellam conveys comfort and happiness as the loved ones reflect sunny enthusiasm in this gladdening rendition of the Black American religious folk song ‘I’m Goin’a Sing When the Spirit Says Sing.’”

~Publishers Weekly