A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

In the Land of the Unreliable Narrator

October 4, 2012 Within a week of its release, Junot Díaz’s new book, This Is How You Lose Her, appeared on The New York Times bestseller list. Rarely does a book of short stories—rarely does literary fiction by a Latino author—generate attention like this. Rarer still are collections that deserve such hype, but in this case, the excitement is well deserved. Díaz, who this week won a MacArthur “genius” grant, is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and his growing legion of fans ought to be well pleased, even thrilled, by the nine dynamic stories in this collection. Junot Díaz will discuss This is How You Lose Her at Nashville’s Southern Festival of Books on October 13 at 4 p.m. in the War Memorial Auditorium. All festival events are free and open to the public.

Across the Generations

October 2, 2012 Louise Erdrich does not fit into any pigeonhole. Her career, spanning three decades and twenty-six books, may once have belonged in the category of the “Native American renaissance” of the late-twentieth century, but that classification is now too restrictive. Her work, which still typically depicts Indians of the American Midwest, reaches toward the universal even as it remains rooted in the particulars of the lives of the Indians who were driven from traditional lands and into the dubious safety of reservations. On October 9 at 6:15 p.m., Louise Erdrich will discuss The Round House at the Nashville Public Library as part of the Salon@615 series. The event is free and open to the public.

Eating Those Poisonous Words

September 26, 2012 Ben Marcus’s new novel, The Flame Alphabet, takes place in a world that seems at first not too dissimilar from our own, but there is one exception: speech and the written word have become fatally poisonous. Young children appear to be the source of the “infection,” and Marcus’s protagonist, Samuel, must find a way to care for his ailing wife and hang on to his increasingly distant daughter, who carries the poison of language and, like all other children, has become an enemy to adults. Ben Marcus will discuss The Flame Alphabet at Nashville’s Southern Festival of Books on October 13 at 3 p.m. in Legislative Plaza, Room 16. All festival events are free and open to the public.

Eating Those Poisonous Words

The Bitter Taste of Sugar

September 25, 2012 The Cutting Season, the second literary thriller from Attica Locke, opens with a murder: the body of a sugarcane field worker, her throat slit, is found in a shallow grave on the grounds of Belle Vie, an antebellum plantation that’s now a tourist attraction and event site. Belle Vie’s manager, Caren Grey, grew up on the plantation grounds. But as clues about the murder begin to surface, Caren sees her vision of Belle Vie’s future, and her own shaky sense of security, begin to crumble. Attica Locke will discuss The Cutting Season at Nashville’s Southern Festival of Books on October 12 at 2 p.m. in Conference Room 1A of the Nashville Public Library. All festival events are free and open to the public.

The Bitter Taste of Sugar

Breakout Fiction

September 24, 2012 J.R. Moehringer, author of The New York Times bestselling memoir The Tender Bar, has always said he wanted to write a novel. So it’s fitting that his first is a work of historical fiction based on the life of William “Willie” Sutton, whose hardships as an Irish-American kid in Brooklyn during the Depression led to a four-decade-long criminal career. “Willie the Actor” was a pacifist bank robber known for using disguises. Though Sutton is a work of Moehringer’s imagination, it also hangs on reams of fascinating research into the life and career of this American folk hero. J.R. Moehringer will discuss Sutton at Nashville’s Southern Festival of Books on October 13 at 1 p.m. in the Nashville Public Library Auditorium. All festival events are free and open to the public.

Breakout Fiction

Writing Back to Charlotte Brontë

September 17, 2012 Scottish-born writer Margot Livesey first read Jane Eyre at the age of nine, and the book has been a literary touchstone for her ever since. After publishing six acclaimed novels, Livesey has returned to Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece and re-created its archetypal heroine as a young woman in 1960s Scotland. The Flight of Gemma Hardy draws heavily on the spirit of Jane Eyre yet tells an original story of struggle, secrets, and love that stands beautifully on its own. Livesey recently answered questions from Chapter 16 about, as she puts it, “writing in the shadow” of a classic. She will discuss The Flight of Gemma Hardy at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. All events are free and open to the public.

Writing Back to Charlotte Brontë

Visit the Fiction archives chronologically below or search for an article

TAKE THE SHORT READER SURVEY! CHAPTER 16 SURVEYOR SURVEYING