Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Counterterrorism from the Inside

Philip Mudd analyzes the federal response to terrorism

August 16, 2013 Philip Mudd’s Takedown purports to be Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda, and in some sense it is. More than that, though, it is a consideration of the way the American intelligence establishment responded to 9/11 and subsequent terrorist threats. It’s also a career memoir: Mudd, who now lives in Memphis, began in 1985 as a junior intelligence analyst at the CIA and rose to important managerial positions at both the CIA and the FBI. A dedicated insider, he respects the context in which he flourished and the people he worked with in the complex counterterrorist bureaucracy.

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No Regrets, Indeed

It may be noir, but John Dufresne’s latest crime novel is a literary bright spot

August 15, 2013 By day, the hero of No Regrets, Coyote, a thriller by award-winning novelist John Dufresne, is a divorced therapist and amateur actor carrying on a platonic affair with his high-school sweetheart, whose husband thinks Coyote is gay. By night, he is a volunteer forensic consultant for the Everglades County Police Department, whose latest case involves the Christmas Eve massacre of a mother and three children and the subsequent suicide of their father. Or what looks like suicide. Dufresne will discuss No Regrets, Coyote at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on August 20, 2013, at 6 p.m.

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All the Fugitives’ Men

In a new ebook single, Gerald Duff delivers personal recollections of the Agrarian poets

August 14, 2013 As a young English professor in the late 1960s, author and literary critic Gerald Duff held appointments at both Vanderbilt and Kenyon, where he came into frequent close contact with the major poets and critics of the Fugitive/Agrarian movement. In Fugitive Days, Duff shares both comic and poignant tales of his encounters with Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Andrew Lytle, and Donald Davidson. He also examines the impact of the Fugitives’ poetry, the New Criticism, and the controversial Agrarian manifesto, I’ll Take My Stand, on the American literary landscape.

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Out of the Mouth of Hell

Peter Carlson recounts a Civil War drama of capture, imprisonment, and escape

August 13, 2013 Peter Carlson’s third work of history, Junius and Albert’s Adventures in the Confederacy: A Civil War Odyssey, relates the true and little-known tale of two intrepid Yankee reporters captured and imprisoned in the Confederacy. This grand tale of adventure reveals much about the Civil War without rehashing the well-worn stories of battles and leaders. It is a gloriously entertaining book that should be on the reading list of anyone curious about the underbelly of the Civil War.

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Taking Charge

Keel Hunt recalls the day Tennessee removed its governor from office

August 12, 2013 In Coup: The Day the Democrats Ousted Their Governor, Put Republican Lamar Alexander in Office Early, and Stopped a Pardon Scandal, Nashvillian Keel Hunt remembers a day in 1979 that will long stand as both a model of bipartisanship and a defense of the people’s right to honest government. Hunt will discuss Coup at the Nashville Public Library (where he will appear with journalist John Seigenthaler) on August 15, 2013, at 6 p.m.; at at Vanderbilt University (where he will appear with Senator Lamar Alexander) on September 20 at 4:30 p.m.; and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13. All events are free and open to the public.

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Signs and Wonders

In her new novel for middle-grade readers, Kristin O’Donnell Tubb explores the magic of the zodiac

August 9, 2013 Franklin novelist Kristin O’Donnell Tubb takes readers on a madcap quest through the streets of New Orleans in her zodiac-themed thriller, The 13th Sign. On the day Jalen Jones turns thirteen, she pays a visit to the French Quarter emporium of voodoo priestess Madame Beausoleil and leaves the shop with a small leather book called The Keypers of the Zodiack. She hopes reading it will shed some light on her future. Instead, by opening the book, she unleashes ancient forces of chaos and finds herself in the fight of her life to regain the world she knows and protect the people she loves. Tubb will read from the novel at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13. All festival events are free and open to the public.

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