Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Mon Dieu!

Holly Tucker’s City of Light, City of Poison is a nonfiction thriller of Parisian intrigue

Holly Tucker’s City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris, a gripping tale of murder and royal intrigue set in seventeenth-century Paris, reads like the best historical fiction as it presents well-documented—and nefarious—facts. Tucker will discuss the book at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 21 at 6:30 p.m.

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Strays

Desperation Road is Michael Farris Smith’s redemptive tale of two broken lives

“To tell you the God’s honest truth, I don’t know what the hell is going on,” says Russell Gaines, the reckless but noble protagonist of Michael Farris Smith’s Desperation Road. Smith is a Southern master in the tradition of Larry Brown and Daniel Woodrell, but with a soulful, generous voice that’s all his own. He will discuss Desperation Road at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 20 at 6:30 p.m.

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A Vast Cacophony of Contradictions

Photographer Jack Spencer seeks the soul of a country

Nashville-based photographer Jack Spencer describes America as “a vast cacophony of contradictions,” but his stunning collection, This Land: An American Portrait, transcends the dissonance. Spencer will sign and discuss This Land at the David Lusk Gallery in Nashville on March 18 from 4 to 7 p.m.

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An American Story

Inaugural poet Richard Blanco talks with Chapter 16 about his new memoir

Richard Blanco brings a poet’s keen eye for observation and a prose writer’s gift for plot to his new memoir, The Prince of los Cocuyos, which illustrates how cultural, sexual, and artistic sensibilities are “all developed—not independently of each other—but simultaneously.” Blanco will appear at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on March 15 at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

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Embrace the Badness

In The Hearts of Men, Nickolas Butler stages the trials of Boy Scout camp

The title of Nickolas Butler’s new novel, The Hearts of Men, points directly to its thematic core: set at a Boy Scout camp in Wisconsin, the book tells the intertwined stories of two camp families over three generations. Butler will discuss The Hearts of Men at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 16 at 6:30 p.m.

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