On finding the right team to root for
…Drew Pearson, Randy White, Cliff Harris — those Cowboys manifested in my fantasy life, mythic figures to whom I owed unquestioned fealty. Photo: Sean Kinch With basketball, a sport unclaimed…
Padgett Powell’s new collection of nonfiction takes you inside the mind of an unconventional novelist
Fans of Padgett Powell’s fiction expect to find in Indigo, his first collection of nonfiction, quirky characters and inimitable prose, and they won’t be disappointed. Another set of readers, unfamiliar…
In The Prophets, debut novelist Robert Jones Jr. reimagines the slave narrative
The plantation at the center of Robert Jones Jr.’s The Prophets is named after the owner’s mother, Elizabeth, but the slaves there call it Empty. The metaphorical mileage that Jones…
In Robert Olen Butler’s Late City, America’s last surviving WWI soldier reports his life story to God
When a 115-year-old man hears God’s voice late at night, he reasonably expects that the time has come for him to transition to the next world. In the case of…
Mary Adkins’ Palm Beach probes the ethics of the ultra-rich
Rebecca and Mickey, the married couple at the center of Mary Adkins’ novel Palm Beach, think they already know about the lives of the ultra-wealthy. As a journalist, Rebecca specializes…
In The Speaking Stone, Michael Griffith considers the contingent nature of existence
Michael Griffith humbly remarks that his books do not qualify him as a “World Historical Individual,” yet in The Speaking Stone: Stories Cemeteries Tell, he accomplishes a feat that none…
