Delicate Prose, Fearless Storytelling
January 21, 2014 In Prosperous Friends, her third novel, Christine Schutt surveys the marriage of Ned and Isabel, a deeply unhappy pair. Through a succession of exquisitely wrought scenes, she conveys the yearning sadness of a love that never quite happens. Schutt—a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize—recently answered questions from Chapter 16 via email. She will give a free public reading at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on January 23, 2014, at 7 p.m. in Buttrick Hall Room 102.
January 15, 2014 In Okey Ndibe’s new novel, Foreign Gods, Inc., a Nigerian-American on the brink of bankruptcy decides to steal the war god from his African village and sell it to a Manhattan art dealer. This scheme leads him into the middle of religious and political conflicts that force him to decide where his deepest loyalties lie. Ndibe will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 19, 2014, at 2 p.m.
January 8, 2014 Sue Monk Kidd’s bestselling 2004 novel, The Secret Life of Bees, is set against the backdrop of the burgeoning civil-rights movement. In The Invention of Wings Kidd turns the clock back further—to the slave-holding South prior to the Civil War. Kidd will discuss the book at 6:15 p.m. on January 15, 2014, at the Nashville Public Library, as part of the Salon@615 series.
