Fiction

November 21, 2011 In her new novel, Kingsport native Lisa Alther uses as a plot device the racial and familial intermarriage that was once common in the Appalachians. Combining the factual relevance of a history book with the intrigue and passion of a romance novel, Washed in the Blood follows the descendants of Diego Martin, a sixteenth-century hog drover abandoned by a Spanish expeditionary party. As centuries pass––and Spanish, English, Portuguese, African, and Native American blood becomes increasingly intermingled––successive generations of Martins struggle with notions of identity and the fickle nature of love.

November 15, 2011 Anthony Doerr’s theme is not subtle. His newest story collection, Memory Wall, opens with an epigraph: “Life without memory is no life at all.” The questions raised by the book—How can experience and emotion be preserved for the millions of anonymous, outwardly unremarkable souls who nevertheless strive to live meaningfully? Are we doomed to be erased? What makes memory, and where does it reside?—loom over this haunting and entrancing collection of tales. On November 17 at 7 p.m., Anthony Doerr will read from his work in Buttrick Hall on the Vanderbilt University campus in Nashville. The event is free and open to the public.

October 28, 2011 Members of the Victorian upper crust, like rich people of all times, feared losing their money. They were afraid their children wouldn’t make good marriages. They worried about keeping reliable servants. But, as former Franklin novelist Tasha Alexander clearly understands, the greatest fear of Victorian society was the loss of respectability. The perp in Alexander’s latest Victorian mystery, A Crimson Warning, plays on this fear as Lady Emily Hargreaves and her husband Colin race to find the culprit before the bodies stack up.

October 26, 2011 Court Gentry lives in a morally ambiguous world. In Ballistic by Memphis novelist Mark Greaney, the ex-CIA assassin brings his unique fighting skills to bear against some of the most violent people on earth—the Mexican drug cartels. The action is fast and deadly, and the shadows dark and deep, in this third outing for one of the thriller genre’s newest heroes.