Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Hank's Ghost

Steve Earle’s first novel tells the story of what happens after Hank Williams dies

March 11, 2011 Steve Earle spent decades as a below-the-radar genius with passionate fans but not a lot of literary recognition outside the world of songwriting. In fact, Earle is not only a hit songwriter (for Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Travis Tritt, The Pretenders, Joan Baez, and others, including himself; his last three albums won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album), but also a playwright, author of the short-story collection Doghouse Roses, and a scholar of the work of James Agee.

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Architect of the Absurd

Tom Perrotta talks with Chapter 16 about bringing page to screen, the future of reading and writing, and the delicate art of dissecting the culture wars

March 10, 2011 Few contemporary novelists can match Tom Perrotta’s gift for skewering the delusions and pretensions of suburbia. From his breakthrough novel Election, a vicious send-up of a high-school campaign for student-body president; through the acclaimed Little Children, about a stay-at-home dad’s unlikely affair with another mom; to The Abstinence Teacher, a pointed and frequently hilarious satire in which a high-school sex-education teacher butts heads with the evangelical right, Perrotta maintains a generous sympathy for the poor souls forced to navigate the calamities of suburban life. He answered questions from Chapter 16 prior to his appearance at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on March 17 at 7 p.m. in Wilson Hall, Room 126.

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Dissecting Bluff City

A serial killer cuts a swath through Memphis in A. Scott Pearson’s second medical thriller

March 9, 2011 Nashville surgeon A. Scott Pearson has followed up his first medical thriller with a second outing for his alter ego, Dr. Eli Branch. In Public Anatomy, space-age surgical technology meets sixteenth-century medical art in a story of murder and mayhem in Memphis. Pearson will introduce and sign Public Anatomy at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Brentwood on March 9, at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on March 19, and at Mysteries & More in Nashville on March 26.

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Diving In

Sara J. Henry’s protagonist rescues a drowning child—and finds herself in a world of mystery

March 8, 2011 When Troy Chance sees a small child being thrown from a ferry into Lake Champlain, she immediately dives into the water to rescue him. The search for his family—and, later, for his kidnappers—sets off the whirlwind plot of Oak Ridge native Sara J. Henry’s debut novel, Learning to Swim. Henry will read from and sign copies of the book at 7 p.m. on March 10 at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Brentwood.

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Counting Calories

Amanda Little teaches readers of The New York Times how to reduce oil consumption

March 8, 2011 In her book Power Trip, Nashville journalist Amanda Little explored the many ways Americans use oil without even knowing it. As Little reiterates in an op-ed piece in today’s New York Times, the net effect of this invisible petroleum consumption is far more than just pain at the pump: “Virtually everything we consume—from hamburgers, running shoes and chemotherapy to Facebook, Lady Gaga MP3s and ’60 Minutes’—is produced from or powered by fossil fuels and their byproducts, all of which could grow more costly as the price of petroleum rises.”

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As Dusk Comes Down

Charles Wright tells PBS viewers where the poems come from

March 3, 2011 The British critic William Empson believed that the heart of poetry is ambiguity, and his theory may explain why poets are so often loath to “explain” their own poems. Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Wright is a master of the deliberate use of ambiguous language, but in a profile this week on PBS’s NewsHour, he offered a revealing look at his own poetic method:

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