Chapter 16 - Part 6

The Other Scarlet Letter

In Hillary Jordan’s provocative new thriller, “A” is for more than adultery

By Fernanda Moore | November 28, 2011

November 28, 2011 As When She Woke opens, Hannah Payne is Hawthorne’s scarlet “A” incarnate: “When she woke, she was red. Not flushed, not sunburned, but the solid, declarative red of a stop sign.” In Hillary Jordan’s imaginary near-future, criminals are “chromed”—genetically modified to make their skin colors match their transgressions—and Hannah Payne’s crime begins with the letter A. Jordan will read from and sign copies of When She Woke on November 30 at 6 p.m. at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis.

After the Breakup

NYT-bestselling author Marisa de los Santos talks with Chapter 16 about love and friendship in her new novel

By Fernanda Moore | October 10, 2011

October 10, 2011 As she did in her first two novels (Love Walked In and Belong To Me), Marisa de los Santos carefully explores the nuances of every type of love—filial, familial, and romantic—in her new novel, Falling Together. For de los Santos, romantic love may get all the sonnets, but true friendship can be more passionate, more enduring, and more excruciating to lose. She will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

Great Goodness in a Mean World

Justin Torres talks with Chapter 16 about his critically acclaimed debut novel—and about what it feels like to go home again

By Fernanda Moore | October 5, 2011

October 5, 2011 Other writers can’t quit praising the debut novel by Justin Torres. “We should all be grateful for Justin Torres, a brilliant, ferocious new voice,” Michael Cunningham wrote for the book’s back cover, where he joined Dorothy Allison, Marilynne Robinson, Paul Harding, and Tayari Jones in a veritable orgy of blurbing for We the Animals. Torres will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

Spinning Ariadne

Tracy Barrett’s retelling of the Theseus myth subverts ancient tradition—and will delight young readers

By Fernanda Moore | September 12, 2011

September 12, 2011 Tracy Barrett has a way with classical myth. Her last young-adult novel, the brilliant King of Ithaka, is an astonishingly original and surefooted reworking of Homer’s Odyssey, in which she somehow discovered new paths on what must be the Western canon’s most heavily trodden ground. Her newest book, Dark of the Moon, takes another famous Greek legend—the story of Theseus and the Minotaur—and makes it fresh and fascinating, even as it honors the foundations of the original tale.

Styron's Choice

In Alexandra Styron’s new memoir, William Styron emerges as a brilliant novelist but an inscrutable father

By Fernanda Moore | August 5, 2011

August 5, 2011 Alexandra Styron, the youngest child of William Styron, was born the year his celebrated novel The Confessions of Nat Turner was published. In her own new memoir, Reading My Father, she aims to merge the tale of her childhood, one that was alternately charmed and cursed, with a carefully researched exegesis of her famous father’s life and work. Styron will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville. She recently answered questions from Chapter 16.

Don't Read This

Chapter 16 talks with Pseudonymous Bosch about being a riddle wrapped in an enigma published in a book

By Fernanda Moore | July 29, 2011

July 29, 2011 Ask any grade-school kid an innocent question about a Pseudonymous Bosch novel, and prepare to be stonewalled: Bosch’s books lure the reader into a conspiracy of silence, in which the author, characters, and plot are all secrets. In fact, Bosch’s entire Secret Series—the fifth and final installment, You Have to Stop This, will be published on September 20—is the apotheosis of what might be called the “reverse psychology” school of children’s literature: warning kids away from the dangerous book they’re presently holding is a surefire way to get them to crack its spine. Pseudonymous Bosch will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.

I Gotta Sing!

By Alice Faye Duncan
WaterBrook
40 pages
$14.99

“A whole barnyard makes noise ‘in the Spirit of joy’ throughout this raucous picture book, a sweetly heartwarming sing-along by Duncan. Kellam conveys comfort and happiness as the loved ones reflect sunny enthusiasm in this gladdening rendition of the Black American religious folk song ‘I’m Goin’a Sing When the Spirit Says Sing.’”

~Publishers Weekly