Chapter 16 - Part 357

A Finely Drawn Character

Robert Gipe’s illustrated debut novel, Trampoline, introduces a troubled teen coming of age during an Appalachian coal war

By Michael Ray Taylor | April 7, 2015

April 7, 2015 It’s been a while since anyone produced a great American coming-of-age-novel, but Kingsport native Robert Gipe hits the mark with Trampoline, an inventive debut set in the coal country of Eastern Kentucky. Narrator Dawn Jewell, fifteen, is as smart as Scout Finch, more profane than Holden Caulfield, and as tough in a fight as Mattie Ross. Gipe tells her story not only in flawless prose but also with 220 comics-style drawings that keep the book grounded in the world of an Appalachian teenager.

Twice as Nice

East Tennessee poet Jesse Graves has won the prestigious Weatherford Award for the second time

By Mary Emily Vatt | April 1, 2015

April 1, 2015 The Weatherford Award is an honor bestowed by Berea College to highlight books that “best illuminate the challenges, personalities, and unique qualities of the Appalachian South.” Basin Ghosts by Johnson City poet Jesse Graves received the poetry prize again this year.

Strange Bedfellows

Pate McMichael talks with Chapter 16 about Klandestine, the story of an unlikely partnership that led to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

By Aram Goudsouzian | March 31, 2015

March 31, 2015 James Earl Ray did not, at first glance, seem like a foaming-at-the-mouth white supremacist, and conspiracy theories inevitably arose in the wake of his assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. In his new book, Klandestine: How a Klan Lawyer and a Checkbook Journalist Helped James Earl Ray Cover Up His Crime, Pate McMichael combines rigorous archival research with a fast-paced narrative to explain how one of those conspiracies was created. McMichael will discuss the book at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on April 7, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.

Bake and Date

Audrey Shulman’s Sitting in Bars with Cake is an illustrated memoir-cum-cookbook about attempting to bake her way into a boyfriend’s heart

By Sarah Norris | March 30, 2015

March 30, 2015 In 2013, Nashville native Audrey Shulman set out on an unconventional quest for a boyfriend. Over the course of a year, she came up with original recipes for fifty different cakes, which she took to fifty different bars, proffering slices to dozens of romantic prospects. She details the results in her first book, Sitting in Bars with Cake. Shulman will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 4, 2015, at 1 p.m.

“Frenchman’s Flat”

By Andrea Spofford | March 27, 2015

March 27, 2015 Andrea Spofford writes poems and essays, some of which can be found in The Portland Review, Sugar House Review, Revolver, and others. Spofford will read from her new book, The Pine Effect, at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville on April 1, 2015, at 4 p.m. The reading is free and open to the public.

“Like Shad Ascending”

By Arthur J. Stewart | March 27, 2015

March 27, 2015 Arthur J. Stewart’s “science flavored” poetry has appeared in more than a dozen journals, including Journal of the American Medical Association, Lullwater Review, and Chemical and Engineering News. Stewart will read from From Where We Came, his fifth poetry collection, at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville, on March 29, 2015, at 2 p.m. and at the Laurel Theater in Knoxville on April 2, 2015 at 7 p.m.

Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America's Violent Past

By Tore C. Olsson
St. Martin's Press
288 pages
$30

“I recommend Red Dead’s History unreservedly not only to fans of the iconic video game, but also to anyone who wants to understand the riotousness — from Wild West gunslingers to Jim Crow to lynching — that darkened our past, and which continues to influence our culture. Olsson’s prose is graceful, his analysis profound. This is history at its most accessible and exciting.”

~Peter Cozzens, award-winning author of A Brutal Reckoning