Emily Bernard’s new essay collection is set on the fault lines between north and south, black and white
With Black Is the Body, Nashville native Emily Bernard leads readers into her inner landscape with candor. Beneath her still surfaces, a rage roils. Bernard will read from the collection at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 7 at 6:30 p.m.
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Rebellious women wrestle against fate in Cary Holladay’s Brides in the Sky
Brides in the Sky, the new story collection by Memphis writer Cary Holladay, brims with vibrant life, nuanced characters, and plots fueled by surprise and suspense. Holladay will discuss Brides in the Sky at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on February 5, at 5:30 p.m.
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In The Weight of a Piano, Chris Cander links the lives of two women through their love of a rare piano
In The Weight of a Piano, novelist Chris Cander delivers a tale of generations and continents, a tragic love story, and a powerful meditation on the power of music—and of silence. Cander will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 1.
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The “man of God” at the center of Terry Roberts’s latest novel is a portrait in contradictions
Terry Roberts’s new novel, The Holy Ghost Speakeasy and Revival, is a lyrical, dreamlike meditation on faith and death. It’s also a page-turning yarn about a law-breaking, wife-stealing, moonshine-running “man of God.” Roberts will speak at the Mildred Haun Conference at Walters State Community College in Morristown on February 1 and at the Rose Glen Literary Festival in Sevierville on February 23.
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A routine DNA test upends Dani Shapiro’s sense of identity
Dani Shapiro was unprepared for a routine DNA test’s stunning revelation: that her beloved father was not a biological relative. Her new memoir, Inheritance, tracks the fallout of these results, one surprising revelation after another. Shapiro will discuss Inheritance at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 30.
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In Shake Your Hips, Randy Fox tells the story of Nashville’s Excello Records
Nashville’s reputation as the capital of the country-music industry belies the fact that some of the city’s deepest, richest musical veins trace back to Nashville’s African-American community. In Shake Your Hips, Randy Fox describes the canny conversion of art and commerce that led Ernie Young to found Excello Records, tapping into the hidden heartbeat of Music City and broadcasting it to the world.
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