Randal O’Wain’s Meander Belt recalls a blue-collar youth
In Meander Belt, M. Randal O’Wain crafts an impressionistic self-portrait of a young man determined to escape the buzz saw of poverty and a family forever on the edge of disaster. O’Wain will discuss Meander Belt at Novel in Memphis on November 29 and at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on February 14.
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In Broke, Jodie Adams Kirshner shines a light on the precarious lives in Detroit’s neglected neighborhoods
Jodie Adams Kirshner’s Broke tracks seven Detroiters in the years following the city’s 2013 bankruptcy. Kirshner will discuss Broke at Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 25.
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Sonja Livingston recounts her search for a missing Virgin Mary statue and her own mislaid faith
In The Virgin of Prince Street: Expeditions into Devotion, Sonja Livingston frames a spiritual quest to rediscover the Catholic faith of her childhood with a literal search for a lost Virgin Mary statue. Livingston will discuss the book at Novel in Memphis on November 24.
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Domestic violence is at the center of Kimberly Belle’s Dear Wife
Kimberly Belle’s Dear Wife tells a story of domestic abuse from multiple points of view: a wife on the run, an angry husband, and a detective determined to find answers.
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Chattanoogan Dave Connis examines the fallout from censorship in his new YA novel
When Clara Evans, the protagonist of Suggested Reading, shows up for the first day of her senior year in high school, the last thing she expects to do is start a revolution. The book — Chattanooga writer Dave Connis’ second young adult novel — presents readers with a complex and nuanced portrait of the consequences of censorship.
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From the Chickasaw Bluffs to the Grizzlies’ “grit and grind,” Memphis abides
Karen B. Golightly and Jonathan Judaken’s Memphis: 200 Years Together weaves a series of essays on the city’s complex history into an intricate quilt.
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