Chapter 16 - Part 353

No Knack for Volition

In Hausfrau, Jill Alexander Essbaum invokes Anna Karenina and Emma Bovary to create her heroine’s erotic misadventures

By Emily Choate | April 27, 2015

April 27, 2015 When Anna—the ex-pat heroine of Jill Alexander Essbaum’s debut novel, Hausfrau—falls into an extramarital tangle with a fellow foreigner, the affair seems contrary to her entire nature as a person and threatens the passive surface of her life. Jill Alexander Essbaum will discuss Hausfrau at The Skillery in Nashville on May 1, 2015, at 7 p.m. The event, sponsored by The Porch Writers’ Collective and Parnassus Books, is free and open to the public.

Car Trouble

There are times when the only recourse to automotive despair is Neil Diamond

By Morey Hill | April 24, 2015

April 24, 2015 It started off with a low, quiet groan. The kind of noise my roommate, Chet, makes when I mention things like “utility bills” or “soap.” Although something clearly wasn’t right, I just didn’t want to spend the money to get it fixed. It was a subtle noise, and my approach was to drown it out—I turned up the radio.

"Bad Dog"

By Wyatt Prunty | April 23, 2015

April 23, 2015 Sewanee poet Wyatt Prunty is the author of nine collections of poems, including The Lover’s Guide to Trapping. He will read from his new book, Couldn’t Prove, Had to Promise, at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 24, 2015, at 6:30 p.m. Joining him will be poet Adam Vines, author of The Coal Life.

“Time to Go Back and Tell the Whole Story”

In a new memoir, John Oates will focus on his life as a solo musician

By Mary Emily Vatt | April 22, 2015

April 22, 2015 Rock’n’Roll icon John Oates has signed a book deal with St. Martin’s Press and will release a memoir, still untitled, in 2016.

On Digging Clay, Selling Meth, and Paternal Domination

By Stephen Usery | April 22, 2015

April 22, 2015 David Joy’s debut novel, Where All Light Tends to Go, paints such a vivid portrait of meth dealing in the Appalachians that one journalist accused Joy of having sold meth earlier in his life. In this podcast interview Joy talks about the difference between meth and crack cultures, drafting and revising, and the expectations of both first and second novels. He will appear at 6:30 p.m. on May 1, 2015, at Parnassus Books in Nashville, and at 2 p.m. on May 2, 2015, at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville.

Movie Magic

Corey Mesler’s Memphis Movie is a wild ride of a novel

By Maria Browning | April 21, 2015

April 21, 2015 An almost-washed-up movie director returns to his hometown to make an indie film that just might salvage his career. That’s the premise of Memphis Movie, Corey Mesler’s wild ride of a novel, which combines Hollywood cynicism with Memphis soul to create a comic tale with a sweet afterglow. Mesler will read from his novel at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on April 30, 2015, at 5:30 p.m.

The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History

By Allen Boyer and Mark Nicholls
Routledge
340 pages
$180

The book “explores the reasons why treason coalesced around specific offences agreed by both the monarch and the wider political nation, why it became an essential instrument of enforcement in high politics, and why, over the past three hundred years, it has gradually fallen into disuse while remaining on the statute book.”

~the publisher