Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Ed Tarkington

So Let Me Burn

In Fire Sermon, Jamie Quatro explores the intersections of love, obsession, and spirituality

With virtuosic lyricism and the striking juxtaposition of religious and erotic obsession, Jamie Quatro’s Fire Sermon delivers an unforgettable and astonishingly original portrait of the moral and psychological consequences of unfaithfulness. Quatro will discuss Fire Sermon at Arts Build in Chattanooga on January 11 and at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 6.

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Reading, Thinking, Grieving, Drinking

In The Futilitarians, Anne Gisleson limns grief, loss, crisis, and regeneration

In 2011, still recovering from the loss of her twin sisters (to suicide) and her beloved father (to leukemia), Anne Gisleson helped form the Existential Crisis Reading Group: a book club bent on exploring the big questions through reading and discussion. Gisleson will discuss The Futilitarians at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 13-15.

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Sing for Our Time, Too

In The Last Ballad, Wiley Cash explores the bloody history of Depression-era textile mills

In The Last Ballad, Wiley Cash delivers a searing account of the conflict between labor and ownership in the textile mills of early twentieth-century Appalachia. Cash will appear at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 13-15, and at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on October 12 at 6 p.m.

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Miraculous Subtlety

Ann Beattie talks with Chapter 16 about the literary wizardry of Peter Taylor

“Peter was a prankster,” says Ann Beattie, who knew Peter Taylor as a reader and as a friend. Editor of the Library of America’s new edition of Taylor’s complete stories and author of The Accomplished Guest, a new story collection of her own, Beattie will appear at the 2017 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville October 13-15.

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Of Sharks and Men

With The Shark Club, Ann Kidd Taylor delivers the quintessential beach read

As a teenager, Maeve Donnelly was bitten by a shark only moments after her first kiss. Fifteen years later, she returns to Florida to face two dangerous passions—sharks and first love. Ann Kidd Taylor will discuss her new novel, The Shark Club, at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 14 at 6:30 p.m.

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Make a Mess of Things

Daniel Wallace returns with a comic romp through a series of Extraordinary Adventures

Best known for his debut novel, Big Fish, Daniel Wallace is a master of wit and whimsy, gleaning both wonder and absurdity from the commonplace. In Extraordinary Adventures, Wallace delivers a modern variation on the picaresque, replete with madcap hijinks. He will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 7 at 6:30 p.m.

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