A Committed Conservative
She’s on the Bird
Good Sport
Obsessed with Understanding
It Ain’t Math
Chapter 16
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Intolerable to Fate

Nobody gets off scot-free in Tim Johnston’s haunting story collection, Irish Girl

By Ed Tarkington |

May 6, 2010 Tim Johnston’s Irish Girl, winner of the 2009 Katherine Anne Porter Prize, juxtaposes random incidents of violence and loss with moving portraits of repressed longing and regret. Written in elegiac, lyrical prose, these stories suggest that the past always weighs heavily on the present, and that, sooner or later, we will all be made to pay for our sins—or our innocence. Tim Johnston will appear at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on May 6 at 7 p.m., and at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on May 7 at 1 p.m.

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The Time It Takes to Write a Book

Margaret Lazarus Dean advises would-be novelists to slow down

By Margaret Renkl |

May 5, 2010 A need to hurry up and finish seems to be encoded in the writerly DNA, particularly for novelists. Poets and short-story writers can have something finished to show after a few weeks’—or even a few days’—work, but novelists slog along in pained isolation for months and months and months and months. And all the while they suspect their friends of secretly thinking, “Yeah, sure, you’re writing a book.” To be taken seriously, to be recognized as a real writer, you have to finish the book, sell it, and get it out there.

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Justice Delayed

Framed for murder and left to languish in a Nicaraguan prison, Eric Volz tells his story

By Paul V. Griffith |

May 5, 2010 In 2006, Eric Volz, a Californian with Nashville ties, was living and working in Managua, Nicaragua, when he received a phone call. A former girlfriend had been brutally raped and murdered. In the days that followed, Volz went from grieving ex-suitor to prime suspect. His trial and yearlong incarceration is a horror story of trumped-up charges, judicial corruption, and political intrigue; his release is a tale of hope. Eric Volz discusses and signs Gringo Nightmare at 7 p.m. on May 5 at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville.

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This Doll Can Talk

Rheta Grimsley Johnson talks with Chapter 16 about literature, newspapers, and her new memoir, Enchanted Evening Barbie and the Second Coming

By Liz Garrigan |

May 4, 2010 A journalist who’s been writing about the South and its characters for more than three decades, Rheta Grimsley Johnson turns the probe on her herself in her second memoir, Enchanted Evening Barbie and the Second Coming. With both humor and poignancy, she writes about growing up among Southern Baptists, her college years at Auburn University, and a never-dull journalistic career that took her from a failed weekly startup with her then-husband Jimmy Johnson (who went on to create the Arlo & Janis comic strip) to big metro dailies such as the Memphis Commercial Appeal and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She will sign copies of her book at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on May 4 at 6 p.m.

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Only Connect

A yearning to be known drives the characters in Holly LeCraw’s The Swimming Pool

By Galyn Glick Martin |

May 3, 2010 The ideal beach read is often no more than the literary equivalent of an umbrella drink: light, frothy, and sweet. Although Holly LeCraw’s ambitious debut novel, The Swimming Pool, is none of those things, it’s worth packing with the beach towels and sunscreen anyway. LeCraw has a keen eye for details, her writing is compelling enough to keep readers engrossed, even on vacation. LeCraw will appear at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on May 4.

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King Cotton and His Victims

Financial historian Gene Dattel looks at the human impact of the cotton trade

By Maria Browning |

April 30, 2010 Financial historian Gene Dattel literally follows the money in his account of America’s cotton trade. In this compelling analysis, he argues that King Cotton was critical to the economic interests of both the North and the South, and that an “amoral” quest for wealth consistently trumped the nation’s qualms about slavery.

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