Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel, Homegoing portrays the ravages of the slave trade on both sides of the Atlantic
Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel, Homegoing, follows the story of two half-sisters born in Ghana in the late-eighteenth century. Effia becomes the “African wife” of a British colonial governor, while Esi is captured by a rival tribe and sold into slavery. Gyasi will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16, 2016.
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Donald Ray Pollock’s The Heavenly Table, set in 1917, reveals desperate hardship among the rural poor
Donald Ray Pollock’s new novel, The Heavenly Table, charts the path of the Jewett Gang, three brothers and bank robbers fated to meet Eula and Ellsworth Fiddler, Ohio farmers plagued by bad luck and worse decisions. Pollock will discuss The Heavenly Table at Crosstown Arts in Memphis on July 19, 2016, at 6:30 p.m., and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16, 2016.
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In Christopher Hebert’s Angels of Detroit, young idealists believe they must destroy the city to save it
Christopher Hebert’s new novel, Angels of Detroit, features a cast of characters who believe that the apocalypse is coming, and humanity is too narcotized or distracted to pay attention. Hebert will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on July 17, 2016, at 2 p.m. and at the John C. Hodges Library at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on August 29, 2016, at 7 p.m.
In Julia Franks’s debut novel Over the Plain Houses, a Depression-era farm wife seeks solace in the wilderness
June 16, 2016 In Julia Franks’s Over the Plain Houses, set in western North Carolina farm country in 1939, a married woman begins to fill the witching hours of night by roaming the wild hills surrounding her farm. Her husband, an evangelical preacher, becomes convinced that his once-pious wife has repudiated God. Franks will discuss Over the Plain Houses at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on June 23, 2016, at 6 p.m.
In Jennifer Haigh’s new novel, Heat and Light, energy companies choose profits over safety
May 9, 2016 With Heat and Light, Jennifer Haigh joins the grand American tradition of the social-protest novel. Like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Upton Sinclair, and John Steinbeck before her, she wields a quixotic sword against corporate corruption and malfeasance—in this case, fracking. Haigh will read from Heat and Light at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 12, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.
In Julia Claiborne Johnson’s comic novel, Be Frank with Me, a reclusive novelist needs help raising her difficult son
April 8, 2016 The premise of Julia Claiborne Johnson’s debut novel, Be Frank With Me, sounds like a winning Hollywood pitch: a reclusive author who’s published nothing since achieving phenomenal success decades earlier is forced to write again when she loses her fortune to a Madoff-style swindler.
