Jim Minnick’s The Blueberry Years, re-released in paperback a few weeks ago, proclaims itself, in the subtitle, as being a “memoir of farm and family.” And so it is. Yet, while Minnick is too humble to proclaim it as such, it is the reader’s prerogative to make of a book what it really and truly […]
June Read of the Month: “Faith Bass Darling’s Last Garage Sale,” by Lynda Rutledge
June 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Review by Andy Johnson. Amy Einhorn Books /G.P. Putnam’s Sons (Penguin). Hardcover. 289 pages. $25.95 In this, Lynda Rutledge’s first novel, God commands ailing Texas widow Faith Bass Darling to sell her Louis XV Elephant Clock, an heirloom wedding ring, a banker’s rolltop desk, a rare Dance Dragoon pistol, 44 signed Tiffany lamps, a portrait […]
May Read of the Month: “Slant of Light,” by Steve Wiegenstein
May 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Review by Cameron Williams The concept of utopia—an ideal community composed of men and women living together in social and political harmony—has been a popular trope in literature since Plato first penned The Republic. Slant of Light (Blank Slate Press), Steve Wiegenstein’s first novel, breathes new life into this genre, (re)imagining the possibility of utopia […]
April Read of the Month: “The Not Yet,” by Moira Crone
April 16, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Review by Philip K. Jason University of New Orleans Press. 272 pages. $15.95 Imagining a Mississippi Delta area significantly transformed by decades of ferocious hurricanes, Moira Crone takes us to a realm of islands where immortals rule and the rest live lives of aspiration or rebellion in a caste-bound, static society. Who wouldn’t want to […]
March Read of the Month: “Into the Free,” by Julie Cantrell
March 1, 2012 by 1 Comment
Review by Adele Annesi Julie Cantrell’s debut novel, Into the Free, offers a poetic voice and compelling story for young adults and adults that engages readers in tales of segregation, challenges, secrets and hope in unexpected places. Set in Depression-era Mississippi, Into the Free is the story of Millie Reynolds, whose mixed Choctaw and white […]
February Read of the Month: “In the Time of the Feast of Flowers,” by Tina Egnoski
February 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Review by Bonnie Armstrong Tina Egnoski won the 2008 Black River Chapbook Contest with a collection of short stories, Perishables. Reviews of that work mention that she is a fine storyteller of the human condition whose fast-paced and dynamic prose generate an emotional intensity coupled with appropriate restraint. Egnoski continues this excellent writing with the publication of […]