Joshilyn Jackson’s “Between, Georgia” reminds us that we are not lonely people. No matter where our lives take us, our families will follow.  When we meet our narrator, Nonny Jane, she is recounting the story of her birth and simultaneously introducing us to a small town family feud that will grow up with her. Born […]

If you were asked to imagine an ongoing chronicle of life in the American South from the late 1600’s through the 1970’s, you might picture snapshots of agriculture, slavery, the Civil War and segregation. Nicholas and Dallas Reed’s “Deep Family” offers a different take on Southern life as it was experienced by three, progressive, wealthy […]

Women hear voices. Some are the voices of those that they love and care for, some are voices that come from the mouths of men they’ve met only once in their lives and some are voices that can only be described as divine. Reading Darnell Arnoult’s “Sufficient Grace” reminded me that most of the women […]

In the 1950s in Drexel, Mississippi, the color barrier remains rigidly in place with each race understanding their sphere. Jade Dupree is raised by her black adopted parents, Jonah and Ruth, although her biological mother is the very socially powerful white Lucille. Jade’s half sister Marlena is married to the wealthiest and most powerful figures […]

In late 1920s New Orleans, while at college Raziela “Razi” Nolan and Andrew O’Connell share a heated romance. In 1929 she slips at a poolside and dies. However, Razi who wanted to live forever finds herself at THE MERCY OF THIN AIR, a gray world in between the mortal plane and the afterlife. She can […]