Fiction

May 24, 2012 Any woman of a certain age who has ever walked through a busy high-school hallway without a plate of cupcakes in her hands knows what it feels like to be completely invisible. Jeanne Ray’s new novel, Calling Invisible Women, is a modern fable about showing up—literally and metaphorically—for your own life, even under the pressure of other people’s incessant expectations. Ray, who is the mother of novelist Ann Patchett, will read from her new novel at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 31 at 6:30 p.m.

May 21, 2012 Into This World, the new novel by Chattanooga author Sybil Baker, is rife with characters whose lives have not unfolded according to plan. Baker’s enthralling story follows a family caught in a web of secrets that must come unraveled before everyone involved can make the changes necessary to move forward. Sybil Baker will read from Into This World on May 23 at Winder Binder Gallery and Bookstore in Chattanooga at 7 p.m. Wine and light refreshments will be provided. The event is free and open to the public.

May 18, 2012 With his debut story collection, The Beautiful Wishes of Ugly Men, Knoxville resident Adam Prince joins ranks with Norman Mailer, Harry Crews, George Singleton, and other writers who explore the darker side of American maleness. Prince and his wife, Charlotte Pence, will read from their new books on May 19 at Union Avenue Books in Knoxville. The event begins at 2 p.m.

May 10, 2012 “If you haven’t already found a woman who will break your heart, find one,” writes Ron Rash in his new novel. “The suffering will be good for you.” A spare, lyrical novel, The Cove juxtaposes the legendarily haunted and severe environs of the Blue Ridge Mountains with the simmering anxiety of the Great War. Rash will read from and discuss The Cove at Nashville Public Library on May 16, as part of the Salon@615 series . The event will begin with a reception at 6:15 p.m., followed by a reading at 6:45. Both are free and open to the public.

May 7, 2012 Nashville medical examiner Samantha Owens lost her husband and children in the 2010 flood. Since then, she has managed to survive by keeping her world small and by containing her grief in a series of compulsive behaviors. But that control is shattered when she’s asked to come to Washington DC to do a second autopsy on the body of a former boyfriend. So begins A Deeper Darkness, the first book in a new suspense series by J.T. Ellison, author of the popular Taylor Jackson mysteries. J.T. Ellison will discuss A Deeper Darkness on May 12 at Mysteries & More in Nashville at 2 p.m.

May 3, 2012 Red Weather, the debut novel by poet Janet McAdams, tracks the story of Neva, a young mixed-race woman who’s searching for her parents. Lyrical and vivid, the mystery unfolds in Central America, in the capital of the small, fictional Coatepeque. There, mounting violence against the country’s indigenous people provides a menacing backdrop to Neva’s crisis of identity, mirroring her lifelong sense of uncertain belonging. Janet McAdams will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on May 13 at 2 p.m.