Essay by Lauren K. Denton Writers come from everywhere, yet it seems the South produces them at a higher rate than usual. Here, we tell stories—those we make up and others that have been passed down through generations. Maybe it’s easier—or more necessary—to tell stories down South, to put fictional lives on paper to make […]
On Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman”: An Essay
November 24, 2015 by 1 Comment
Essay by Glynn Custred There are several ways a novel can become a bestseller. At one end of the scale are the author’s name recognition and heavy investment in an aggressive marketing campaign. At the other end is the widespread appeal of what the story has to say and how well it is said, expressing […]
“Go Set a Watchman,” by Harper Lee
July 20, 2015 by Leave a Comment
“Killing Atticus” Review by Angela Shaw-Thornburg On July 10th, I watched the Confederacy lose one of its final battles on the grounds of the State House in South Carolina. The Confederate battle flag whisked down the pole into the waiting hands of two honor guardsmen. They methodically rolled it up into a silky little package […]
“The Mockingbird Next Door,” by Marja Mills
September 2, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Allen Mendenhall Nelle Harper Lee has been embroiled in lawsuits over the last couple of years and making headlines for her alleged litigiousness. Marja Mills’s The Mockingbird Next Door is a welcome and timely look at Nelle (as her friends and family call her) from another angle, one that offers us a fuller […]
“The Secret of Magic,” by Deborah Johnson
July 22, 2014 by 1 Comment
Review by Donna Meredith The fiftieth anniversary of the Freedom Summer is the perfect time for the release of Deborah Johnson’s novel, The Secret of Magic. Johnson’s story reminds us in a powerful way how severe the effects of racism were just a short time ago, yet the novel’s achievements go far beyond a simple […]
March Read of the Month: “The Books that Mattered,” by Frye Gaillard
March 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Allen Mendenhall “My first encounters with books were disappointing.” That’s a curious opening line for a memoir about reading inspirational books, but an apt one, too, because Frye Gaillard anticipates right away how he will treat reading: not as an activity undertaken in isolation or as an exercise liberating readers from the quotidian […]