Chapter 16 - Part 300

Brother Bill?

Daryl A. Carter reckons with the ambivalent racial legacy of President Bill Clinton

By Peter Kuryla | August 1, 2016

In Brother Bill: President Clinton and the Politics of Race and Class, historian Daryl A. Carter considers several critical episodes in the Clinton years, taking measure of the forty-second President’s racial policies and thinking, separating fact from fiction and history from memory. Carter will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16. All festival events are free and open to the public.

Welcome Home, Caroline

Poet Caroline Randall Williams returns to Nashville to take a new post at Fisk

By Margaret Renkl | July 18, 2016

Nashville native Caroline Randall Williams will be the new writer-in-residence at Fisk University, a post her grandfather also served.

A Noble Lunacy

Through the story of a break-in at Oak Ridge, Dan Zak’s Almighty explores the tensions of the atomic age

By Aram Goudsouzian | July 15, 2016

In July 2012 three protesters, including an elderly nun, broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In Almighty, Washington Post reporter Dan Zak uses their story to illuminate a movement of dissenters against nuclear weapons. Zak will discuss the book at the East Tennessee History Center Auditorium in Knoxville on August 4, 2016, at 7 p.m.

An Assault on Making Sense

Odie Lindsey’s debut story collection, We Come to Our Senses, details the dirty secrets of deployment

By Beth Waltemath | July 14, 2016

In his debut collection, We Come to Our Senses, Odie Lindsey challenges the grand narratives of war with stories of the self-destructive impulses of the men and women forever changed by it. Lindsey will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on July 21, at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on July 28, at the Southern Festival of Books October 14-16, and at Vanderbilt University on November 10. All events are free and open to the public.

Every Man for Himself

Donald Ray Pollock’s The Heavenly Table, set in 1917, reveals desperate hardship among the rural poor

By Sean Kinch | July 13, 2016

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.

A Cape Canaveral of the Soul

Patrick Ryan’s new stories place buoyant, striving characters in a small patch of Florida

By Peggy Burch | July 12, 2016

Set in Cape Canaveral in the late twentieth century, Patrick Ryan’s stories conjure a rich variety of intriguing souls, from a pregnant teen who wants to be Miss America to a gay sixteen-year-old with a crush on an ex-astronaut. Ryan will discuss The Dream Life of Astronauts in conversation with Ann Patchett at Parnassus Books in Nashville on July 19, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.

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