Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

An Island of Rich Girls

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, Anton DiSclafanii’s debut novel, captures the swirl of impulses in a 1930s teenager at odds with her age

August 22, 2013 In her debut novel, The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, Anton DiSclafani offers an elegantly written, reflective journey of a protagonist who begins to confront her own fearlessness and desire, both of which put her at odds with the cultural expectations for women of her time. DiSclafani will discuss The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls 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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Freeing His Father’s Ghost

In this scorching debut memoir, Michael Hainey traces the haunting mystery of his father’s death

August 21, 2013 In dark, poetic, and often brilliant prose, Michael Hainey’s wrenching autobiography, After Visiting Friends: A Son’s Story, sets out to uncover long-held secrets and discover the truth about a death in the family that has haunted Hainey for decades. He will appear at the twenty-fifth annual Southern Festival of Books held in Nashville October 11-13, 2013. All events are free and open to the public.

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A Fable of Modern Haiti

In Claire of the Sea Light, Edwidge Danticat explores the secrets of a small Haitian town

August 20, 2013 Born in Haiti and raised there by her extended family until she joined her parents in the U.S. when she was twelve, Edwidge Danticat is a writer who can interpret both cultures, and she has a keen eye for the tensions between them. In Claire of the Sea Light, she offers a story of modern Haiti and its enduring spirit. Danticat will appear at the Nashville Public Library on August 28 at 6:30 p.m.

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He Weren’t Going to Go Down Quiet

James McBride, bestselling author of The Color of Water, returns with The Good Lord Bird

August 19, 2013 James McBride earned universal praise and worldwide recognition for The Color of Water, his classic memoir of growing up black with a white mother in 1960s New York. His subsequent books—including Miracle at St. Anna, a novel adapted into the 2008 film by Spike Lee—have grappled with the problem of race and the legacy of slavery. In The Good Lord Bird, McBride returns to these themes but with a starkly different approach. He will appear 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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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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