For a novel that begins by plunging right ahead to its grim ending—a little boy falling from a water tower—Atomic Family (Blair, 2023) still manages to build excruciating suspense by the time the story circles back to the fall. Why did the boy climb the tower? Will he survive the fall? Author Ciera Horton McElroy […]
“Justice in the Jim Crow South: An Unlikely Journey from Negro Policeman to Florida’s First Black Parole & Probation Commissioner” by Charles J. Scriven
March 1, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Debbie Floyd Living through a time and reading about a time in history are two very different experiences. About the time I was born (1950) and growing up in Jacksonville one man was facing an uphill climb for civil rights and equal justice regardless of race. Charles Scriven was bringing about change and […]
“Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place” by Neema Avashia
February 27, 2023 by Leave a Comment
When I came out to a college friend, I lamented my hesitance to claim the label bisexual. “Questioning if you’re bi enough is like, peak bi,” she told me. This conversation replayed over and over in my head as I read Neema Avashia’s Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place (West […]
“Scaring the Bears” by Gordon Johnston
February 15, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Steven Croft As Gordon Johnston’s fellow Georgia writer Tony Grooms has said, “Writers are, by occupation, collectors—not just of books—but observations and experiences.” Scaring the Bears: Poems (Mercer University Press, 2021) is a “middle-of-the-journey” consideration by a fifty-something speaker of an entire life: where he has been and where he believes he is going. The […]
“Lark Ascending” by Silas House
February 15, 2023 by 1 Comment
What with climate change and ineffective, unstable democracies, no wonder many novelists have penned apocalyptic stories in recent years. Renowned Southern author Silas House is the latest to try the genre, crafting a poignant tale, Lark Ascending (Algonquin Books, 2022). The title comes from a George Meredith poem of the same title. The novel’s final […]
“Night Letter: A Novel” by Sterling Watson
February 15, 2023 by Leave a Comment
With Night Letter (2023), Florida author Sterling Watson proves once more that he is a master storyteller and an exemplary writer. Set in the Sixties in the Florida Panhandle, the novel’s focus is on its sole narrator, an eighteen-year-old youth just released from six years in a Nebraska reform school. This narrator, Travis Hollister, tells […]