By Piper Maitland
Berkley
560 pages
$6.50
“This book is fantastic. A perfect blend of Dan Brown’s religious intrigue, Michael Crichton’s scientific thriller, and Anne Rice’s vampire novels.”
—Portland Book Review
Robert J. Norrell’s new novel of race, violence, and injustice in 1960s Alabama is a thoughtful and captivating tale in the best tradition of the Southern courtroom drama
March 20, 2013 Eden Rise by Robert J. Norrell, a history professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, contains both a lively narrative and a deep historical understanding of the atmosphere of the small-town South at the height of the civil-rights movement. Set in 1960s Alabama, the novel’s plot centers on a murder trial, and the book is a fine addition to the genre of Southern courtroom dramas that capture the tension between the objective reality of racial injustice and the subjective desire of most of the white population to deny it, justify it, or cast themselves as its true victims.
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In James Williamson’s coming-of-age novel, a city boy is shaken by small-town racism
March 19, 2013 In 1958, institutional racism infected all life in the deep South. Because of distant threats—court decisions, freedom riders, and the like—its influence was perhaps more entrenched than ever. Yet many whites seemed oblivious to its pernicious effects. In James Williamson’s novel, The Ravine, a thirteen-year-old boy from a privileged white family in Memphis spends the summer in a small Mississippi community, where a violent tragedy changes his life profoundly.
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Novelist Lauren Groff talks with Chapter 16 about her acclaimed novel Arcadia
March 14, 2013 Included on countless “best of” lists in 2012, Lauren Groff’s Arcadia tells the loving and lyrical story of a commune’s rise and fall from the late 1960s through the end of the twentieth century, and of the coming of age of one of its members, a boy known as Bit. Groff’s lush, figurative prose channels the natural world that envelops the community of Arcadia, as well as the magical realm of the Grimm fairy tales that fuel Bit’s imagination. Groff will read from her work in Nashville on March 22 at 4 p.m. in Buttrick Hall Room 101 on the Vanderbilt University campus. The event is free and open to the public.
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Memphis author Cary Holladay has written a lyrical new collection of stories that spans generations
March 13, 2013 Cary Holladay’s lyrical new collection of linked stories, Horse People, follows various members of a prosperous family in Orange County, Virginia, from the Civil War through World War II and beyond. Holladay crafts small, intimate portraits of her characters as they confront timeless themes of birth and death, compassion and cruelty, memory and loss, and the many guises of both cowardice and courage. She will read from and sign copies of Horse People at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on March 22 at 5:30 p.m., and in Buttrick Hall, Room 101, on the Vanderbilt University campus in Nashville on March 28 at 7 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.
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Yann Martel talks with Chapter 16 about this year’s Nashville Reads pick
February 26, 2013 Yann Martel’s novel, Life of Pi, was a blockbuster in every sense of the word: it spent fifty-seven weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, won the 2002 Man Booker Prize as well as a host of other international literary prizes, was translated into forty languages, and has sold more than seven million copies. Martel will give a lecture at the Nashville Public Library on March 2 at 3 p.m. as the kickoff event for Nashville Reads, a partnership between the library, the office of Mayor Karl Dean, Humanities Tennessee, Parnassus Books, Friends of the Library, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and the Nashville Public Library Foundation. Martel’s reading is the first event in a series of activities, including a screening of the film Life of Pi, in a citywide reading campaign that extends through April 13. The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are available in advance by clicking here.
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