Ed Tarkington

September 14, 2010 The Browns were trailblazers of the “Nashville Sound,” massively successful crossover artists who, from 1955 to 1967, amassed dozens of hits and a slate of music-industry nominations and awards. At the peak of their popularity, the Browns outsold even their old friend Elvis. Their signature hit, “The Three Bells,” sold over a million copies and has since been covered by a variety of artists, from Ray Charles and Roy Orbison to Alison Krauss & Union Station. But, despite their success, the Browns are all but anonymous today, barely remembered even by music aficionados. Bestselling author Rick Bass tells their story in a new novel called Nashville Chrome.

July 21, 2010 Cast against the dark history of the 1962 Ole Miss Riot, Steve Yarbrough’s Safe from the Neighbors is both an engrossing mystery novel and a quietly incisive exploration of how even the seemingly remote aspects of our lives are shaped by the tides of history. Steve Yarbrough will give a free public reading at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference on July 21 at 8:15 p.m.

June 22, 2010 When Alice Pepin is found dead of anaphylactic shock, the result of a catastrophic peanut allergy, it’s not clear why she ever sat down in front of a plate of peanuts in the first place, or why all the EpiPens in the apartment are missing. Why did Alice die? Did she commit suicide? Or was she murdered—by her husband, or, even more incredibly, by marriage itself? This unconventional premise is only one reason that Adam Ross’s Mr. Peanut—a dark examination of sex, marriage, and murder—is already this year’s most talked-about fiction debut, though it hits stores for the first time today. Ross will discuss Mr. Peanut at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville tonight at 7 p.m., and at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on June 24 at 6 p.m.

May 6, 2010 Tim Johnston’s Irish Girl, winner of the 2009 Katherine Anne Porter Prize, juxtaposes random incidents of violence and loss with moving portraits of repressed longing and regret. Written in elegiac, lyrical prose, these stories suggest that the past always weighs heavily on the present, and that, sooner or later, we will all be made to pay for our sins—or our innocence. Tim Johnston will appear at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on May 6 at 7 p.m., and at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on May 7 at 1 p.m.

April 20, 2010 Since Jay McInerney’s emergence as part of the 1980s literary brat-pack, his work has read much like a series of letters from a cultured but slightly deviant friend: the type of person who runs with the too-fast/too-rich set, frequents the hot clubs, and gets invited to all of those parties we imagine as unspeakably glamorous but which are actually full of hopeless vanity. And yet, like our insider friend—whom we both pity and envy; whom we love but aren’t sure we particularly like—we still find ourselves fascinated by these people and their stories. We want to be invited to their parties, even if we don’t really want to attend them, and we’re grateful to have a reliable correspondent to document every excess.