Fiction | Chapter 16

A Southern Coming-of-Age Tale With Its Own Singular Sound

Ed Tarkington’s debut novel is an ode to love in all its complicated forms

By Amy Greene | January 5, 2016

January 5, 2016 In Only Love Can Break Your Heart, longtime Chapter 16 contributor Ed Tarkington hits many of the classic coming-of-age tale’s familiar notes, but the cast of characters and the rural Virginia town he populates in his accomplished debut are nothing less than singular. Tarkington will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 5, 2016, at 6:30 p.m.

Asleep at the Wheel

On the launch date of his debut novel, a Chapter 16 writer considers the failures of his past

By Ed Tarkington | January 4, 2016

January 4, 2016 With the foolish, feverish urgency of a gambler betting all he has left on a longshot to win, I tried again, finishing another novel in less than a fifth of the time it had taken me to write the first one. There was a quick flurry of interest from editors but still no publishing deal. My agent—who had already sunk hundreds of hours into my career for nary a nickel, and hence will be my hero for life—remained hopeful. “I have a good feeling about this one,” she said. “Have faith.”

Bittersweet Creek

December 11, 2015

“From the author of The Happy Hour Choir comes a Romeo and Juliet story with Southern flair–witty, warm, and as complex and heart-wrenching as only love and family can be.”

–From the publisher

An Irrepressible Phenomenon

Remembering Memphis novelist Mark Behr, who died on November 27

By Marshall Boswell | December 11, 2015

December 11, 2015 Mark Behr’s classes were a thing apart. His students entered his classroom with one identity and finished the semester with another. He was formidable and transformative. On five continents. If you were lucky enough to be one of his students, he routinely promised to destroy you, to fail you, to go for the jugular. To change your life.

Depraved Heart

December 10, 2015

“Dr. Kay Scarpetta, who keeps us coming back to Patricia Cornwell’s sprawling crime novels, is one tough broad. . . . Once Scarpetta decides to ferret out Lucy’s secrets, the novel becomes more of a psychological thriller…”

–New York Times Book Review

“Hey, God?” “Yes, Charles?”

December 10, 2015

“Hey, God? Yes, Charles. is a rare narrative of the beauty of life and the endlessness of love, all told from the perspective of intimate, humorous and poignant conversations between Charles Cooper and God.”

–From the publisher

Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America's Violent Past

By Tore C. Olsson
St. Martin's Press
288 pages
$30

“I recommend Red Dead’s History unreservedly not only to fans of the iconic video game, but also to anyone who wants to understand the riotousness — from Wild West gunslingers to Jim Crow to lynching — that darkened our past, and which continues to influence our culture. Olsson’s prose is graceful, his analysis profound. This is history at its most accessible and exciting.”

~Peter Cozzens, award-winning author of A Brutal Reckoning