Chapter 16 - Part 432

Finders, Keepers

In Beth Hoffman’s new novel, a Charleston woman searches for long-lost pieces of her family’s past

By Sarah Norris | May 23, 2013

May 23, 2013 Beth Hoffman’s new novel, Looking for Me, delves into territory that’s very similar to her bestselling 2010 debut novel, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, with female protagonists who are forced to reckon with familial loss. Both books take place in the South and feature chivalry, friendly small talk, iced tea, good manners, and respect for hard work and older generations. Hoffman will discuss Looking for Me at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on May 29, 2013, at 7 p.m.

Under Siege

Civil War novelist Jeff Shaara resurrects Vicksburg under Grant’s barrage

By Ralph Bowden | May 22, 2013

May 22, 2013 Legions of historians have written narratives of Civil War battles bristling with footnotes and rigorous research. They would never presume to include the principal figures’ real-time thoughts or speculate about any conversations between them. Civil War novelist Jeff Shaara, on the other hand, has the freedom to invent. Though his books are also grounded in historical sources, he gives his characters life and includes richly detailed scenes, recreating the guns’ thunder, the ringing ears, the sweat mixing with dirt. Shaara will discuss A Chain of Thunder, his newest novel, on May 26, 2013, at 3 p.m. at the East Tennessee Historical Center in Knoxville.

Can’t Stop the Signal

Craig Havighurst’s Air Castle of the South is the biography of an extraordinary radio station

By Paul McCoy | May 21, 2013

May 21, 2013 Spin through your AM dial past the static, past the end-timer rants and the political talk, and eventually you’ll tune into 650AM, the home of WSM Radio. You are listening to a signal that’s been going strong for the better part of a century, a signal that helped create Nashville’s very identity and broadcasts the culture of country music to the entire world. In Air Castle of the South: WSM and the Making of Music City, Craig Havighurst follows an extraordinary group of artists, engineers, and managers as they created a broadcasting legend—and with it an entire industry—from the ground up. Havighurst will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 23, 2013, at 6:30 p.m.

A Writer’s Town

What can a fiction writer learn from a Nashville recording session?

By Todd Dills | May 20, 2013

“I spend a lot of time in the coffeehouses of East Nashville, where I live. “What do you do?’—the question has been posed to me countless times in idle conversation. My stock response, ‘I write,’ is invariably followed by some permutation of ‘What instruments do you play?'” Fiction writer Todd Dills considers what it means to build a literary community in a town full of songwriters. Dills will read from Triumph of the Ape on May 21, 2013, at 7 p.m. at Fat Bottom Brewery in Nashville. He will be joined by songwriter Mike Willis. This free event is part of the East Side Storytellin’ series, which pairs writers and musicians in performance.

When the Killer’s Not the Mystery

Screenwriter Heywood Gould’s offbeat thriller turns the classic detective story upside down

By Liz Garrigan | May 17, 2013

May 17, 2013 It can be a little disorienting to pick up a detective thriller only to discover that the identity of the homicidal maniac is no mystery. To find, in fact, that the killer is making a movie about his serial crimes, directing an imaginary crew to pull back on this decapitated head, move in tighter on that drowning body, etc. But, hey, this is Hollywood, where backstabbing producers must die, and violently. Heywood Gould will discuss and sign copies of Green Light for Murder, the first in a series of Detective Tommy Veasy mysteries, at Mysteries & More in Nashville on May 18 at 2 p.m.

Hellhound on His Trail

Bill Cheng’s debut novel, Southern Cross the Dog, channels Delta Blues mythology with striking authority

By Ed Tarkington | May 16, 2013

May 16, 2013 “The past keeps happening to us,” writes Bill Cheng in his debut novel, Southern Cross the Dog. “No matter who we are or how far we get away, it keeps happening to us.” These words are potent, both for their echo of Faulkner’s famous dictum (“The past is never dead”) and for the fact that their author is a Chinese-American New Yorker. Despite having never set foot in Mississippi, Cheng has staked a formidable claim in the heart of Faulkner Country. Cheng will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 22, 2013, at 6:30 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