Fiction | Chapter 16

The Wonder of Her Smile

In his first novel, Carson Morton sends readers to the Louvre in the company of thieves

By Chris Scott | August 16, 2011

August 16, 2011 In Stealing Mona Lisa, first-time novelist Carson Morton takes readers to the heart of Belle-Époque Paris to participate in a notorious art heist with a cast of lovable rogues. Morton will read from the book at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Brentwood on August 18 at 7 p.m. He will also appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.

Anniversary Accolade

Oprah can’t get enough of Michael Knight’s The Typist

By Tristan Hickey | August 15, 2011

August 15, 2011 Novelist Michael Knight, a professor of English at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, published his elegant novel The Typist last August to great acclaim. A week after the first anniversary of its publication, the praise keeps on coming: Oprah.com made The Typist its Book of the Week last Tuesday. Calling it a “quiet, heartbreaking sleeper novel,” the editors also included a link to the site’s full review. Read it here.

The Beat Goes Down

Clyde Edgerton brilliantly captures the complex dance of music and race in a small Southern town in 1963

By Michael Ray Taylor | August 12, 2011

August 12, 2011 At barely 200 pages, The Night Train is Clyde Edgerton’s shortest book, and yet in its simple story of two musically inclined teenagers, one white and one black, it may surpass Walking Across Egypt and The Bible Salesman as his best. Edgerton will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville.

From Ahab to Akmaaq

John Minichillo’s The Snow Whale is a satirical retelling of Melville’s Moby-Dick

By Ed Tarkington | August 9, 2011

August 9, 2011 In his debut novel, The Snow Whale, MTSU creative-writing professor John Minichillo uses Melville’s Moby-Dick as a touchstone for a satirical juxtaposition of the trivialities of cubicle culture with the wilds of Northern Alaska, where men still hunt whales—to consequences both hilarious and unexpectedly moving. Today Minichillo talks with Chapter 16 about the challenges of imagining a traditional whale hunt, finding a venue for unconventional fiction in small-press publishing, and taking on the Great American Whale.

The Deliberation

By Tristan Hickey | August 8, 2011

Why is it that “the one that got away” sometimes intrigues us more than the one that didn’t? Sara Anderson, a kindergarten teacher engaged to handsome young minister Daniel Parker, faces that question when she is called for jury duty and discovers that an old flame is the prosecuting attorney. During a week-long jury trial, Sara faces a torrent of emotions – betrayal, bitterness, fear, and worry – all the while listening to the evidence in the case at hand. Sara suspects that there is more to the story than meets the eye, but she isn’t prepared for the answer to be so shockingly close to her own heart.

–From the Publisher

Little Sam Mountain

By Tristan Hickey | August 8, 2011

Little Sam Mountain follows the life of John Dowdy as he grows up in the mountains of Western North Carolina during the Great Depression. Like so many mountain people, the Dowdys experience great poverty, but they are patriotic and eager to enlist when World War II breaks out. The novel follows John Dowdy as he leaves his sweetheart, Sarah, and his family to go to Europe to fight. When he returns after the war and sees the dramatic changes that have occurred, he is forced to reassess his plans for a life on Little Sam Mountain.

–From the Publisher

The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History

By Allen Boyer and Mark Nicholls
Routledge
340 pages
$180

The book “explores the reasons why treason coalesced around specific offences agreed by both the monarch and the wider political nation, why it became an essential instrument of enforcement in high politics, and why, over the past three hundred years, it has gradually fallen into disuse while remaining on the statute book.”

~the publisher