May 19, 2016 Prior to his appearance at the Arts Building in Chattanooga on May 20, 2016, and at Parnassus Books in Nashville the following day, Harrison Scott Key spoke with Chapter 16 about waking up to the understanding that “everybody has a weird family,” and that his own family was pretty near the top of the weirdness scale.
In Louise Erdrich’s latest novel, LaRose, grief unfolds in a multi-generational tale of justice and atonement
May 18, 2016 In Louise Erdrich’s mesmerizing new novel, LaRose, two neighboring households straddling the border of the Ojibwe reservation become permanently entangled in matters of justice and grief after the accidental shooting of a young boy. Erdrich will appear alongside novelist Jane Hamilton as part of the Nashville Public Library’s Salon@615 series on May 25, 2016, at 6:15 p.m.
Lee Clay Johnson’s desolate debut novel, Nitro Mountain, exerts a powerful magnetic pull
May 17, 2016 Nitro Mountain, the debut novel from Nashville native Lee Clay Johnson, reveals a strikingly evoked world of depravity, degradation, and bad romance in a remote crevice of Appalachia. Johnson will read from the book at Brown’s Diner in Nashville on May 20, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.
Journalist Vince Vawter looks back on writing Paperboy, his first novel for children
May 16, 2016 “After my debut novel, Paperboy, won a 2014 Newbery Honor, a question gnawed at me: what do I know about children’s literature?” Prior to his appearance at the Children’s Festival of Reading, held in Knoxville on May 21, 2016, journalist Vince Vawter reflects on his surprising second career as a middle-grade novelist.
For Congressman Jim Cooper, the cure to this year’s political demagoguery is a good dose of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men
May 13, 2016 In the first of a nine-essay series commemorating the centennial year of the Pulitzer Prizes, U.S. Representative Jim Cooper reflects on the political relevance of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1947.
With his fifth novel, John Hart proves once again that “literary thriller” is not an oxymoron
May 12, 2016 Redemption Road proves once again that John Hart is a master of the literary thriller. His flawed and haunted characters must work in the shadows of modern-day North Carolina to find their way to salvation. Hart will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 19, 2016, at 6:30 pm.
