Hard Honest Comedy
The essays in Padgett Powell’s Indigo, his first collection of nonfiction, introduce readers to the bizarre characters and brilliant prose that fans of his fiction have come to expect.
Empty Children
The plantation at the center of Robert Jones Jr.’s The Prophets is called Empty, but this bold and poetic slave story is replete with passionate characters and disturbing events. Jones will discuss The Prophets at a 2021 Southern Festival of Books virtual event on September 30.
A Right Guy
In Late City, Robert Olen Butler imagines a deathbed dialogue between God and a 115-year-old man who happens to be America’s last surviving veteran of World War I. Butler will discuss Late City at the online 2021 Southern Festival of Books.
The Yawning Gap
In Mary Adkins’ third novel, Palm Beach, a journalist and an actor from New York learn about the eccentricities of the ultra-wealthy when they start working for billionaires in South Florida.
Poor, Forked Animals
In The Speaking Stone, a collection of essays, Michael Griffith ambles among the gravestones of a Cincinnati cemetery to track the subtle ways history intersects with individuals. He reminds us, in light-hearted prose, that pride and ambition lead inexorably to oblivion.
Freedom from Delusion
In seven interlocking chapters, Joan Silber’s novel Secrets of Happiness dramatizes the lives of characters at crossroads that force reassessments of values. Silber will discuss the novel at a virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 6.
