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Fiction

We Are What We Bury

In his new novel, Want Not, Jonathan Miles digs through the garbage

By Sean Kinch |

November 14, 2013 Jonathan Miles’s second novel, Want Not, follows a middle-aged linguistics professor, a pair of Dumpster-diving “freegans,” and a suburban housewife, all living in greater New York City, as they come to terms with the refuse of their lives. It’s a droll and affecting tale that disguises its philosophical message beneath a comic veneer. Miles will read from Want Not at Parnassus Books in Nashville on November 16, 2013, at 4 p.m.

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A Wise, Intuitive Friend

Nikki Giovanni’s vibrant spirit is evident in her new collection, Chasing Utopia

By Maria Browning |

November 13, 2013 Nikki Giovanni is a poet who speaks directly about the business of living, whether she’s celebrating simple pleasures, observing the difficulties of love, or denouncing injustice. On November 20, 2013, at 6:15 p.m., she will discuss her new collection, Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid, at the Nashville Public Library. The event, part of the Salon@615 series, is free and open to the public.

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A Genuine Heart

In her new novel, Amy Tan depicts the life of a Shanghai courtesan

By Maria Browning |

November 12, 2013 In The Valley of Amazement, bestselling author Amy Tan revisits her hallmark themes of female identity and struggle through the story of a young half-American courtesan in early twentieth-century Shanghai. Tan will be in Nashville to discuss and read from the novel on November 18, 2013, at 6:15 p.m. at the Hume-Fogg Academic High School Auditorium. The event, which is free and open to the public, is part of the Salon@615 series.

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Getting Closer

With Jason Bateman joining Nicole Kidman on the project, Kevin Wilson’s bestselling novel, The Family Fang, is surely headed for the big screen

By Margaret Renkl |

November 8, 2013 In 2011, when actress Nicole Kidman, who lives in Nashville, optioned Kevin Wilson’s debut novel, The Family Fang, for a feature film, the Sewanee author was dumbfounded. “It’s crazy,” he told Chapter 16’s Tina LoTufo at the time. “That’s the furthest thing from your mind when you’re writing a book. [But] maybe in the back of my head I was thinking if I could write a good-enough novel I would get to meet Nicole Kidman. And it would all be worth it.”

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A Collision of the Beautiful and the Brutal

In a new anthology, John Branscum and Wayne Thomas have collected the literary treasures of Appalachia

By Ralph Bowden |

October 31, 2013 For Red Holler: Contemporary Appalachian Literature, John Branscum and Wayne Thomas have compiled a group of stories, essays, poems, and graphic narratives from the work of twenty-three Appalachian authors. As the book’s subtitle suggests, the selections are truly contemporary, and many stretch the boundaries of traditional literary forms. They also stretch the old Appalachian stereotypes of primitive violence, poverty, and ignorance.

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American-Made and the Nature of Community

A writer visits the real Tennessee shirt factory at the heart of her new historical novel

By Susan Gregg Gilmore |

October 25, 2013 Wages for skilled cut-and-sew workers have risen faster than those of the average job, but young Americans aren’t interested in garment manufacturing. Experts say the work just isn’t glamorous enough to attract their attention. I wish some of them could have joined me recently when I spent an afternoon in an old shirt factory in Dunlap, Tennessee, about twenty miles northwest of Chattanooga.

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