Jefferson Cowie explores the troubling history of racist anti-statism in the South
FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: With Freedom’s Dominion, Jefferson Cowie spins a dark, intricate tale of white, racist, anti-statist ideas of freedom in Alabama, revealing a sprawling history of white resistance to federal power. The book recently received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in history.
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Jolene McIlwain’s Sidle Creek offers a vivid portrait of small-town Appalachia
In her debut story collection Sidle Creek, Jolene McIlwain fashions a world and characters as complicated as they are enduring. These stories let us come to know a small Appalachian community in Western Pennsylvania through its people, from hunters to diner workers to miners.
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Matthew Vollmer’s memoir considers the mysteries of the living and the dead
Matthew Vollmer’s All of Us Together in the End contemplates the certainties of life and its mysteries – whether natural or supernatural. Vollmer will discuss the book at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on May 23 and The Bookshop in Nashville on May 24.
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Teens work against the clock to save lives in a time-twisty murder mystery
Justin Warren, the protagonist of Lauren Thoman’s debut novel, I’ll Stop the World, finds himself in a bit of a pickle. It seems he’s suddenly time-traveled to the 1985 version of his hometown, where he has a week to solve a mystery and save his grandparents’ lives. Lauren Thoman will discuss her work at a “Birthing the Book” event hosted by The Porch in Nashville on May 11.
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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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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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