Book Reviews

Daniel Wallace, best known for magical Southern novels like Big Fish, tackles a difficult truth in his new memoir, This Isn’t Going to End Well. Wallace’s brother-in-law, William Nealy, a popular cartoonist and outdoor writer, committed suicide in 2001, and in seeking to understand that tragedy, Wallace has crafted a sublime mediation on family, art, and friendship. Wallace will appear at the ETSU Spring Literary Festival in Johnson City on April 12-13 and the SouthWord Literary Festival in Chattanooga on April 14-15.

In Welcome to the Circus of Baseball, sportswriter Ryan McGee recalls his summer as an intern for the minor league Asheville Tourists.

Set in the later years of the Depression, Charles Frazier’s The Trackers tells the story of a painter, commissioned to create a mural for a Wyoming post office, who is hired by a wealthy rancher to locate his runaway wife. Charles Frazier will discuss The Trackers with Tony Earley at a ticketed event at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 11.

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: Focused on the brutal killing of a Mississippi socialite, Beverly Lowry’s Deer Creek Drive revisits an event that grabbed national headlines, left lingering questions, and is still met with silence in the Delta town of Leland. Lowry will appear at SouthWord Literary Festival in Chattanooga on April 14-15.

In Jeannette Walls’ new novel Hang the Moon, a Prohibition-era woman steps out of her father’s shadow and creates a brave new world. Walls will discuss her book on April 4 at Parnassus Books in Nashville.