Stage Antics and Self-Reckoning
Lydi Conklin’s Songs of No Provenance sets empathy alongside shame, showing us how to root for every version of its protagonist.
Fiction
A Parable of Young Womanhood
In her debut novel, Girls with Long Shadows, Tennessee Hill follows the identical Binderup triplets — Baby A, Baby B, and Baby C — as adulthood and community attitudes intrude on their deep bond.
Busy Dreams
Over four decades, Richard Bausch has come to be regarded as one of literature’s foremost practitioners of the short story. Few have limned the struggles of the human heart in a forlorn world with comparable skill. Bausch’s people are — there’s no better way of saying it — us. His new collection, The Fate of Others, is a luminous addition to his formidable legacy.
To Stand Close and Feel Less Alone
In his new novel, Run for the Hills, Sewanee author Kevin Wilson takes readers on an unconventional road trip with four siblings eager to ask some hard questions of their long-lost father. Wilson will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 15 and Novel in Memphis on May 16.
From the Outskirts
Ocean Vuong’s new novel, The Emperor of Gladness, revolves around the unexpected bond that develops between a vulnerable young man and an elderly woman who offers him a home and a chance to begin again. Vuong will discuss The Emperor of Gladness at the Nashville Public Library in a ticketed event co-hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 18.
Real Powers
In her latest novel, A Spell for Change, Nicole Jarvis writes about three young people in 1920 Appalachia who are blessed — or cursed — with magic. Jarvis will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 22.
