“Early friendships take place at a time when you are experiencing all kinds of ‘firsts.’ And for another person to witness your firsts, or let you see hers, can be especially intimate and meaningful.” Prior to her appearance at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on March 23 at 7 p.m., Meg Wolitzer talks about her novel The Interestings.
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“To tell you the God’s honest truth, I don’t know what the hell is going on,” says Russell Gaines, the reckless but noble protagonist of Michael Farris Smith’s Desperation Road. Smith is a Southern master in the tradition of Larry Brown and Daniel Woodrell, but with a soulful, generous voice that’s all his own. He will discuss Desperation Road at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 20 at 6:30 p.m.
The title of Nickolas Butler’s new novel, The Hearts of Men, points directly to its thematic core: set at a Boy Scout camp in Wisconsin, the book tells the intertwined stories of two camp families over three generations. Butler will discuss The Hearts of Men at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 16 at 6:30 p.m.
Wally Lamb’s fifth novel, We Are Water, is a testament to the fact that families can survive almost anything thrown at them—murder, abuse, abandonment—if love remains. Lamb will appear in conversation with songwriter Mary Gautier on March 11 at Green Door Gourmet in Nashville in a benefit event for the Porch Writers’ Collective.
The ballet dancers in Maggie Shipstead’s novel, Astonish Me, are engaged in a daily war against their mortal limitations. Shipstead will discuss Astonish Me at the John C. Hodges Library at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on March 6 at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Eveningland, the new collection of linked stories by Knoxville writer Michael Knight, focuses closely on the lives of affluent families in and around Mobile Bay. Knight will discuss Eveningland at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on March 7 and at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 8.
