Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Don’t You Dare Say Nothin’

In Odie Lindsey’s Some Go Home, secrets, lies, and myths collide across generations

Complex strands of cultural and personal history intersect in Odie Lindsey’s Some Go Home, an ambitious debut novel exploring the relationship between private trauma and public strife. Lindsey will discuss Some Go Home in virtual events hosted by the Southern Independent Booksellers Association on August 6 and the Southern Festival of Books, October 1-11.

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The Resentment Game

In Lee Conell’s The Party Upstairs, a father and daughter struggle to find their places in stratified Manhattan

Martin and Ruby, the father-daughter tandem at the center of Lee Conell’s debut novel, The Party Upstairs, appear content living in the basement of an elegant New York apartment building. Over the course of a single day, however, their façades crumble, and hidden emotions explode to the surface.

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Stories and Voices

Appalachian storytellers take center stage in Foxfire Story

Anyone with an interest in the Appalachian South is familiar with the Foxfire program, dedicated to documenting and preserving the traditional folkways of the region. Oral traditions have always been a major focus of the project, and Foxfire Story puts them center stage, bringing together a selection of tales, jokes, anecdotes, oral histories, songs, and sayings drawn from material collected over 50 years.

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I Would Have Said It Was Mystical

In Karen Salyer McElmurray’s Wanting Radiance, a daughter searches for her own buried origins

Fortune telling — through tarot cards, palm readings, or other means of divination — was a way of life for Miracelle and her mother, whose bond forms the heart of Karen Salyer McElmurray’s novel, Wanting Radiance. After years on her own, Miracelle sets her sights on the past, including her mother’s unsolved murder.

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The Resurrection Racket

W.M. Akers returns to his mythical Jazz Age New York City, where time is out of joint

In W.M. Akers’ Westside Saints, set in an alternative version of 1920s New York, detective Gilda Carr must solve mysteries surrounding the appearance of the dead, including her late mother.

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Intrigue in Spain

Mike Maden hits another bullseye with Tom Clancy Firing Point

Trouble has a way of finding President Jack Ryan and his son, Jack Jr., the legendary heroes of the late Tom Clancy’s clandestine spy thrillers who are back for another go in Tom Clancy Firing Point by Knoxville’s Mike Maden. The author will hold a virtual discussion about the book with Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on June 14.

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