A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

How Much Damage Did I Do?

“In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals.” Thus begins Michael Ondaatje’s newest novel, an engrossing literary mystery with echoes that hearken back to The English Patient. Ondaatje will discuss Warlight at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 19.

The Wrong Side of History

Charles Frazier’s Varina returns to the era of Cold Mountain but focuses on the Southern elite who bear the historical burden of instigating the Civil War. Frazier will discuss Varina, in conversation with novelists Paula McLain and Ann Patchett, at the Nashville Public Library on May 14.

Trauma, Suffering, and Joy

Karen Spears Zacharias’s Christian Bend is the final novel in a trilogy set in the small East Tennessee community of the same name. It adds new characters and plot twists to the major issues set up in the first two novels, Mother of Rain and Burdy.

A Trio on Love and Loss

A fallen policeman’s survivors confront their grief and rearrange their lives in Leesa Cross-Smith’s debut novel, Whiskey & Ribbons. The author will speak at Parnassus Books in Nashville on May 6.

The Sound of the Sentence

Amy Hempel’s fiction offers up an almost musical experience, one where rhythm and pulse seem to affect the reader in tandem with the goings-on of the story itself. Hempel will give a free public reading at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on April 19.

Forever Needing Something Stronger

In The Fighter, Michael Farris Smith’s latest tale of human struggle in the Mississippi Delta, brawler Jack Boucher is drowning in debt, dodging enemies, and losing the battle against his own fractured memory. Smith will appear at Novel in Memphis on April 16, and at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 17.

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