The Southern Literary Review celebrates Southern authors and their contributions to American literature. We feature classic writers who have defined Southern literature, and we highlight emerging authors with interviews, profiles, and book reviews. We support independent bookstores. If you subscribe to our newsletter, please add southernliteraryreview@comcast.net to your email contacts list so that the newsletter doesn’t […]
“Fish Streets before Dawn: Poems” by Rick Campbell
In a new collection by accomplished poet Rick Campbell, Fish Streets before Dawn: Poems (Press53 2024), evocative settings underscore themes of aging, the fragility of life, and inevitability of change and death. The first section is titled “Alligator Point” after the Florida gulf front community where Campbell lives. “The Wild Lament of Saint Teresa” describes […]
Read of the Month: “All We Were Promised” by Ashton Lattimore
All We Were Promised (Ballentine Books 2024) by Ashton Lattimore is a literary historical novel set in 1837 in which the author accomplishes exactly what an excellent historical novel should—that is, she blends well-researched, accurate historical facts into a fictional plot to create a fascinating, eminently readable, and suspenseful story. Readers will learn true history […]
“To the Manor Born” by Matthew Speiser
Like the TV series, The Man From High Castle, Matthew Speiser’s To the Manor Born (Black Rose Publishing 2023) is an alternate history. Instead of asking what the world would have looked like if Germany had won WWII, Speiser’s book asks what if the American Civil War had ended differently. The result is an imaginative, […]
“Clete” by James Lee Burke
As the legions of fans of James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series will no doubt readily attest, JLB knows how to write a good story. In that regard, Clete (Atlantic Monthly Press 2024) is no different as it’s a darn fine tale of friendship, danger, and despair. It has flashes of noir thriller and exposes […]
“Dirt Songs” by Kari Gunter-Seymour
In Dirt Songs (Eastover Press 2024), Kari Gunter-Seymour proves she is at the top of her game by evoking both the wild energy and lustful passion of youth and the regrets such indulgences oft engender later in life. Other poems in the collection beautifully capture the natural world of Appalachia through precise language and fresh […]