Ed Tarkington

May 16, 2013 “The past keeps happening to us,” writes Bill Cheng in his debut novel, Southern Cross the Dog. “No matter who we are or how far we get away, it keeps happening to us.” These words are potent, both for their echo of Faulkner’s famous dictum (“The past is never dead”) and for the fact that their author is a Chinese-American New Yorker. Despite having never set foot in Mississippi, Cheng has staked a formidable claim in the heart of Faulkner Country. Cheng will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 22, 2013, at 6:30 p.m.

April 1, 2013 Elizabeth Strout’s collection of linked stories, Olive Kittredge, earned the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for its evocative portrait of the triumphs and tragedies of a small Maine town. Strout’s follow-up, The Burgess Boys, returns to Maine but widens its scope by revisiting the hardscrabble town of Shirley Falls from the point of view of two brothers who have escaped a scarred family history. They are drawn back to town by a strange crime which unearths long-buried tensions that will change their lives irrevocably. Elizabeth Strout and her editor, Susan Kamil, will appear in Nashville on April 8 at 7 p.m. to discuss The Burgess Boys as part of the Salon@615 series. The event will be held in the Frances Bond Davis Theater at the Harpeth Hall School, and Parnassus Books will be on hand with book sales. The event is free and open to the public.

February 7, 2013 Margaret Wrinkle has some very ambitious aims in her debut novel, Wash: to explore and reconcile the contradictions and conflicts of the relationship between owner and owned in the antebellum South, a feat she manages by opening a window onto the infamous practice of slave breeding. Margaret Wrinkle will discuss and sign Wash at Parnassus Books on February 16 at 2 p.m.

January 22, 2013 “We get what we’re given. Nothing more, nothing less,” writes Marjorie Celona in her debut novel, Y. This terse, stoic observation captures Celona’s ethos as a storyteller. Y limns the lives of Shannon, an infant abandoned on the steps of the YMCA, and Yula, the abused and traumatized teenage mother who leaves her there. Moving back and forth in time, the novel follows the events leading up to the birth and Shannon’s frequently harrowing journey through the foster-care system. Through it all, Shannon waits for the chance to find her birth parents and ask the titular question, “Why?” Celona will discuss and sign copies of Y at Parnassus Books on January 24 at 6:30 p.m.