Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Recalling the “Clinton 12”

Rachel Louise Martin chronicles the battle to desegregate an East Tennessee high school

Rachel Louise Martin’s A Most Tolerant Little Town: The Explosive Beginning of School Desegregation recounts the story of the “Clinton 12,” who in 1956 were the first students to desegregate an all-white public high school in the South. Martin will discuss the book at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 14 and Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on June 20.

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American as Apple Pie

Friends turn to each other in Brandon Taylor’s The Late Americans

With his second novel, The Late Americans, Brandon Taylor invites us into a study on the intersection of loneliness, belonging, and being happy.

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Call of the Wild

David George Haskell explores all things acoustic within the natural world

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: David George Haskell’s fourth book, Sounds Wild and Broken, was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction. Haskell will deliver the keynote address at the Clarksville Writers Conference on June 8. 

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No Fairy Godmother Here

A girl and her cat help each other survive brutality and war

Doan Phuong Nguyen mines family history as well as world history in her debut novel for young readers, set in South Vietnam in the 1960s. She will discuss Mèo and Bé at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 24.

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Performing Womanhood

Why Tammy Wynette Matters places the singer’s work in a feminist context

Critic Steacy Easton’s Why Tammy Wynette Matters examines Wynette’s public persona and artistry. Easton will discuss the book with Jewly Hight at Novelette Booksellers in Nashville on June 2.

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Love of Place and People

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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