Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

An Oak Ridge Story

Half-Life of a Secret explores a family’s secrets and a nation’s silence

In Half-Life of a Secret, Emily Strasser tells the story of her grandfather, a chemist for Oak Ridge’s World War II Manhattan Project, and how family secrets intersect with national ones.

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Memories of Massacre

Historians Beverly Bond and Susan O’Donovan illuminate a tragic chapter in Memphis history

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: With Remembering the Memphis Massacre, a collection of essays by notable historians, editors Beverly Bond and Susan O’Donovan bring to light a forgotten chapter in Southern history and explain how it shaped the future of American democracy. 

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Too Coarse for Poetry

Tom Piazza’s new novel imagines an 1883 meeting of writers hoping to redefine America

In Tom Piazza’s novel The Auburn Conference, an idealistic scholar arranges a meeting of famous writers in 1883 to debate the meaning of America. Piazza will discuss the book at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on May 11.

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Lights! Camera! Comic Books!

Tom Hanks delivers a sprawling, genre-bending tale

Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks has penned a stunning debut novel with a mouthful of a title: The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece. Hanks will discuss the book before a sold-out crowd at Montgomery Bell Academy on May 11.

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Bonds Across Time and Space

Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water braids stories over generations

Abraham Verghese mines the history of Kerala’s St. Thomas Christians — and larger debates about faith and science — in his sprawling second novel, The Covenant of Water. Verghese will discuss the book at a ticketed event at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 18.

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Nothing More Autobiographical

Lorrie Moore’s See What Can Be Done is a window into a lively mind

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: “Pick a thing up, study it, shake it, skip it across a still surface to see how much felt and lively life got baked into it,” writes Lorrie Moore in her collection, See What Can Be Done: Essays, Criticism, and Commentary.

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