Chapter 16 - Part 17

The Particular Art of Magical Realism

Aimee Bender talks with Chapter 16 about her work

By Susannah Felts | October 25, 2010

October 25, 2010 Aimee Bender, a modern fabulist and sharp prose stylist, sprinkles fairy-tale dust into contemporary settings and conflicts. The central conceit of her latest novel, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, is fetchingly simple and surreal: one day, a young girl names Rose Edelstein bites into a forkful of her mother’s lemon cake and finds she can “taste” her mother’s feelings. Bender recently spoke with Chapter 16 about the book, food as metaphor, and what compels her to write magical realism. She will discuss her work at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on October 28 at 7 p.m.

Fantine's Folly

The protagonist of Susan Straight’s new novel can’t escape the past until she understands it

By Susannah Felts | October 18, 2010

October 18, 2010 Traversing both the gentrified pockets and gangstaland of Los Angeles, as well as the sugar-cane fields and sweltering swampland of Louisiana, Susan Straight’s new novel is a complex work of art. Take One Candle Light a Room offers exquisitely rendered settings, lyrical prose, and a formidably large cast of characters. Its narrator, Fantine Antoine, an African American of Louisiana Creole descent and California birth, is an accomplished travel writer, but in this book she undertakes a journey unlike any she has experienced before—one that stands to alter her path permanently. Straight will read from the book at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on October 18 at 6 p.m.

Ethics and the Movies

Scholar Sam B. Girgus considers the cinema of redemption

By Susannah Felts | September 22, 2010

September 22, 2010 What do Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, and Michaelangelo Antonini’s L’avventura have in common—apart from being uncontestable classics of the cinema? For Sam B. Girgus, a professor of English at Vanderbilt University, these films come together under an umbrella he calls the “cinema of redemption.” In his new work of criticism, Levinas and the Cinema of Redemption: Time, Ethics, and the Feminine, Girgus explores how many of the ideas illustrated by these films resonate with those of French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Girgus will discuss the book at Davis-Kidd Booksellers on September 22 at 7 p.m.

Not So Different After All

Jeannette Walls talks with Chapter 16 about writing a bestselling memoir and a bestselling novel

By Susannah Felts | September 7, 2010

September 7, 2010 Jeannette Walls’s first bestselling memoir, The Glass Castle, the shocking chronicle of her own hardscrabble years as the child of frequently homeless parents, is considered by many to be a standard-bearer of the genre—and a tough act to follow. But Walls had an equally captivating tale nestled in her family tree. In 2009’s critically acclaimed Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel, she channels her remarkable grandmother’s life in Arizona during the early twentieth century. Jeannette Walls appears at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on September 8 at 6 p.m. and at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on September 9 at 7 p.m.

Tell Me a Story of Deep Delight

Algonquin’s new collection inspires a troublesome question: is Southern literature going the way of the slamming screen door?

By Susannah Felts | August 4, 2010

August 4, 2010 In its annual anthology, New Stories from the South 2010: The Year’s Best, Algonquin Books has, as usual, brought out a strong collection of compelling short stories. Too bad so few of them are distinctly, or even faintly, Southern.

A Captured Mind

In his new novel, David Madden explores the psychological consequences of witnessing a terrible crime

By Susannah Felts | July 28, 2010

July 28, 2010 Based on plot summary alone, Abducted by Circumstance, a new novel by acclaimed Knoxville-born author David Madden, sounds like a poolside page-turner. Yet this quiet and finely crafted novel is less a psychological thriller than an engrossing, complex exploration of a troubled woman’s identity. It is also a daring narrative experiment in point of view.

Tias and Primas: On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us

By Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, illustrated by Josie Del Castillo
Seal Press
304 pages
$30

“Within these pages, I found my abuela, my tías and my primas — laughing, crying, and nodding alongside me. This book is a gift of understanding, and loving one’s family, even when our families are complicated and painful. It’s a beautiful reminder of the power of storytelling and the profound connection of kinship.”

~ Paola Mendoza, author, organizer and filmmaker