In Liberty Street: A Savannah Family, Its Golden Boy, and the Civil War (U of SC Press 2024), Jason K. Friedman takes an unusual approach to combine the personal story of how he researched this book with the history of a Savannah family and Civil War battles. When Friedman purchases a home in Savannah’s historic […]
Donna Meredith interview Jennifer Moorhead, author of “Broken Bayou”
July 14, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Broken Bayou Summary Dr. Willa Watters is a prominent child psychologist at the height of her career. But when a viral video of a disastrous television interview puts her reputation on the line, Willa retreats to Broken Bayou, the town where she spent most of her childhood summers. There she visits her aunts’ old house and discovers […]
“Margaret: The Rose of Goodwood” by Donna Meredith
July 3, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Without a doubt, writer Donna Meredith picked a winner when she chose to write a historical novel about Margaret Wilson Hodges Wood and her estate, Goodwood, in Tallahassee, Florida. In reality, the subject probably picked her. As she explains in an author’s note, a family member believed he had connections to Margaret’s second husband. Meredith […]
“Dark Dive” by Andrew Mayne
July 1, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Although I’ve been a fan of Andrew Mayne thrillers for some time, I never reviewed his books for Southern Literary Review. His early novels, like the superb story in The Naturalist, aren’t set in the South, so I read them only for enjoyment, not for sharing with SLR readers. But after hurtling through title after […]
“A Rose in Little Five Points” by Deidre Ann DeLaughter
June 17, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Set in Atlanta, Deidre Ann DeLaughter’s engaging second novel, A Rose in Little Five Points, sprawls across the 70s and 80s, examining widely divergent themes like immigration, the AIDS epidemic, and women’s roles in both the family and the workplace. Protagonist Meredith Fields struggles with self-esteem issues, or what she calls “the three-headed FearGuiltShame self-recrimination […]
“Fish Streets before Dawn: Poems” by Rick Campbell
June 15, 2024 by Leave a Comment
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 […]