Reviewed by Donna Meredith Like many Southern novels, Sewing Holes explores a somewhat dysfunctional family facing challenges and loss. Yet Darlyn Finch Kuhn’s refreshing approach to this material results in a novel more heartwarming than tragic, more uplifting than gloomy. Narrator Tupelo Honey Lee is known by her middle name—for obvious reasons. Set in 1975 […]
“A Late Encounter With the Civil War,” by Michael Kreyling
April 8, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Allen Mendenhall Now that it’s 2015, the sesquicentennial of the Civil War has come to a close. Those who don’t follow such anniversaries may not have noticed it was ever here, but it was, although without the fanfare or nostalgia that marked the commemorations at the semi-centennial and the centennial. Michael Kreyling, a […]
“Dollbaby,” by Laura Lane McNeal
April 1, 2015 by 2 Comments
Reviewed by Donna Meredith Dollbaby, Laura Lane McNeal’s debut novel, is a Southern gothic tale with the requisite decaying mansion, locked rooms, long-held secrets, and a sometimes eccentric, sometimes just plain crazy owner named Fannie. Almost-twelve-year-old Ibby Bell finds herself deposited at the door of her grandmother Fannie’s “Queen Anne monstrosity” in New Orleans after […]
“The Land Breakers,” by John Ehle
March 24, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Donna Meredith John Ehle’s The Land Breakers transports readers to the mountains of North Carolina in 1779, when settlers first breach the virgin forests and wrestle a primitive life from the land. More completely and accurately than any other author, Ehle conveys the struggle involved in settling this rugged territory by immersing us […]
“Fire Shut Up In My Bones,” by Charles Blow
March 17, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Norwood Holland Fire Shut Up In My Bones is Charles Blow’s memoir about growing up a black male in the American South; it depicts a spectrum of rural-life experiences in which coming-of-age involves leaving behind a secret past. On a mural-sized canvas with deft brush strokes, Blow’s memoir paints a picture of complicated […]
March Read of the Month: “A Cuban in Mayberry,” by Gustavo Pérez Firmat
March 5, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Miles Smith IV When Gustavo Pérez Firmat told a fellow Cubano he planned to write a work on The Andy Griffith Show, his friend lamented that this was an americanada project, meaning that it was typically Anglo-American and beneath a cultured Cubano scholar. Firmat’s project became more than a simple exploration of mid-twentieth […]