“Seldom had there been the quiet beauty and happiness I had now,” writes novelist Darcey Steinke (Suicide Blonde, Milk, Jesus Saves) in her new memoir, Easter Everywhere (Bloomsbury, $24).
It was 1999, and Steinke was spending a year at the University of Mississippi on a Grisham Fellowship. She’d never lived in the Deep South, but that year gave Steinke some peace of mind and some much needed freedom from the difficulties she was having in Brooklyn with her music-loving boyfriend (and the father of her child). In addition to that quiet and happiness in Oxford, Steinke writes, she was also, for the first time in her adult life, “master of my own stereo,” and she filled it with the sounds of R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Fred McDowell, and Memphis Minnie. The voice of Elvis drew her to Graceland. But Elvis as bona-fide religious icon? Read about it in Easter Everywhere.
Steinke is back to living and teaching in New York now, but on Monday, April 23rd, she’s back in Memphis for a reading and booksigning at Burke’s Book Store from 5 to 6:30 p.m. It’s the store’s first author appearance since moving to its new location in Cooper-Young. Call 278-7484 to reserve a copy of Easter Everywhere or for more information on Darcey Steinke’s booksigning.