A Finely Drawn Character
April 7, 2015 It’s been a while since anyone produced a great American coming-of-age-novel, but Kingsport native Robert Gipe hits the mark with Trampoline, an inventive debut set in the coal country of Eastern Kentucky. Narrator Dawn Jewell, fifteen, is as smart as Scout Finch, more profane than Holden Caulfield, and as tough in a fight as Mattie Ross. Gipe tells her story not only in flawless prose but also with 220 comics-style drawings that keep the book grounded in the world of an Appalachian teenager.
March 18, 2015 Jason Miller’s debut crime novel, Down Don’t Bother Me, is a clever variation on Raymond Chandler-style noir with the blue-collar soul of Chris Offutt and the wry black humor of Tom Waits. Miller will give a reading at Parnassus Books in Nashville at 6:30 p.m. on March 24, 2015, and at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis at 6:30 p.m. on March 31.
March 17, 2014 Ivoe Williams, the heroine of LaShonda Katrice Barnett’s debut novel, Jam on the Vine, is an African-American girl born in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Texas to poor, hardworking parents. The story of Ivoe’s trials and triumphs as an aspiring journalist provides a vivid depiction of the black experience during one of the ugliest periods in American history. Barnett will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 23, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
March 11, 2015 Fiona Doyle’s face was horribly scarred when she was a little girl. But what if the accident had never happened? Moriah McStay’s Everything That Makes You follows Fiona and an alternative, unscarred version of herself, exploring how much (and how little) would change if we could turn back the clock and “fix” what we think is wrong with our lives. McStay will read from her debut novel at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on March 17, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
