If you’ve got a hankering for something familiar but different, and you’re available this evening, head over to Burke’s Book Store around 5:30 p.m.
There you’ll find a reading and book signing with Steve Stern, a prolific author whose latest novel is A Fool’s Kabbalah (Melville House, $19.99 paperback).
As the press release describes it: In the ruins of postwar Europe, the world’s leading expert on the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism goes on a hair-raising journey to recover sacred books stolen by the Nazis. The novel features numerous real-life historic figures, reimagines Gershom Scholem’s quest and how it sparked in him the desire to realize the legacy of his dear friend, the brilliant philosopher Walter Benjamin. The novel intertwines the stories of these quixotic characters, who, though poles apart, complement one another in their tragi-comic struggles to oppose the supreme evil of history, using only the weapons of humor and a little magic.
Memphis is Stern’s hometown and many of his works are steeped in the Bluff City. Kabbalah not so much, but Stern’s rich imagination is always at work, no matter where the action takes place. He’s the author of several short story collections, including The Wedding Jester (winner of the National Jewish Book Award), Isaac and the Undertaker’s Daughter (winner of a Pushcart Writer’s Choice Award and an O. Henry Prize), and Lazar Malkin Enters Heaven (winner of the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish American fiction). He has also written three novels and two books for children. He teaches creative writing at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Book reading and signing by Steve Stern, Thursday, March 13th, 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. at Burke’s Book Store, 936 Cooper Street.
A 40-or-so-minute drive will take you to the site where William Faulkner died some 60 years ago in Byhalia, Mississippi. It’s a gas station now, but in its place once stood the Leonard Wright Sanatorium, a reputable place but one stigmatized with its association for treating alcoholism. Perhaps, that is why when Faulkner died in 1962, the Memphis Press-Scimitar, TheCommercial Appeal, and The New York Times reported that the author died in Oxford, his death shrouded in shame and unasked questions even today.
Hickman has been fascinated with Faulkner since taking a single-author course on him as a sophomore in college. “Faulkner’s literature is always relevant because it’s a window into human nature,” she says. She later earned her Ph.D. at Ole Miss with a concentration in Faulkner and Southern literature. “Then, I met and became good friends with novelist Joan Williams, a Memphian who’d been in a relationship with Faulkner. That opened an entirely different window. His literature and personal life converged.”
Meeting Williams also led her to writing The Romance of Two Writers about the two writers’ affair, and through it, Hickman learned of Faulkner’s “rich interior world,” which she was able to delve into deeper in her most recent release. “These extramarital affairs he sought were another form of addiction, and aspects of them were more imagined than realized, yet they kept him going,” Hickman says. “His wife, Estelle, is fascinating. A brilliant, artistic woman who had her own struggles. She actually was a patient at Wright’s before her husband.”
“I’d actually walked around the site a couple of times, once with Joan Williams, so I was familiar with it,” she adds of Wright’s Sanatorium. “There were dilapidated, small scattered cabins. … The grounds were eerie, otherworldly. Two metal lawn chairs remained positioned side by side under a favorite oak tree. You couldn’t help but imagine the patients wandering around in various states of dishevelment. Honestly, it was a bit like a Stephen King novel. I was fortunate to interview some of the last close associates of the sanatorium, and the family who purchased the property were careful guardians, photographing what was left of the original structures and preserving the records, documents they discovered under a stairwell.”
Between Grief and Nothing includes these interviews and more, including previously undisclosed medical details. “Many of my sources are new and original — and hopefully reaching a readership outside of academia,” she says.
Hickman also says that readers don’t need to be familiar with Faulkner’s life or works to read her book. “I wrote this book with a general readership in mind focusing on a propulsive narrative. … There’s this collusion — between his genius and struggles — and while his creative powers aren’t widely shared, his struggles are widely relatable.”
“I often was stuck by the mindset toward alcohol and drug addiction during Faulkner’s time. Treatment was a band-aid until the next episode. While therapy has come a long way since then, we’re still living in a culture ripe with addictions.”
To celebrate the release of her Between Grief and Nothing, Novel will host a Meet the Author event with Hickman on Saturday, February 8th, at 2 p.m. You can order a signed copy here.
Payton Burk and Kathleen Weatherford (Photo: Michael Donahue)
Once upon a time there was a little boy who asked his mother if he could have a pet.
The little boy’s name is Payton Burk. His mother’s name is Kathleen Weatherford. His question led to the two collaborating on their first children’s book, If You Take A Cicada Home as a Pet, in 2022.
They recently completed their second book, If You Take A Groundhog Home as a Pet. The new book will launch at 3:30 p.m. today, January 30th, which is Burk’s 10th birthday, at a book signing at Novel at 387 Perkins Extended in Laurelwood Shopping Center.
If You Take a Groundhog Home as a Pet
Weatherford, a metalsmith/jewelry artist whose custom-made pieces sell across the country at high-end stores, says Burk was 7 years old when he got a homework assignment to write what it’s like to have a pet. He said, “Oh, mom. I don’t even have a pet,” Weatherford says.
“He’d been begging to have a pet,” but the family is “on the go a lot,” so Weatherford told him, “You don’t need a pet.”
On their way to school, she and her son saw a cicada which appeared to be sleeping. “It looks like a little alien to him. And it flies off. I said, ‘Oh, man. That could have been your pet.’ He got so upset. He said, ‘Now I really don’t have a pet.’”
But, she adds, “That’s when we started the journey of writing.”
But starting that day, Weatherford and Burk began composing a book to and from school each day about what it would be like to have a cicada for a pet. “We would text little pieces of the story in the voice texts on my phone.”
They’d compile everything and organize their thoughts after he got home from school. Burk was learning sentence structure without even knowing it.
Weatherford also realized putting a book together was helping Burk’s recently-diagnosed ADHD.
When the book was completed, Weatherford hired Victoria Trum from Moldavia in Eastern Europe to illustrate the book.
Weatherford self-published the book, which she originally gave as family Christmas presents. She put the leftover books at Landmark Booksellers in Franklin, Tennessee. “They sold out every time.”
Last winter, Burk asked his mother if they could write another book. “He was getting really tired of winter because he couldn’t play outside.”
Weatherford told him, “We’d better hope the groundhog doesn’t see his shadow. Burk came up with the idea of someone capturing the groundhog as a pet so it won’t be able to see its shadow. The result would be an early spring. If You Take a Groundhog Home as a Pet was born.
Creating a book together was much more than just a pastime, Weatherford says. “The whole purpose was to help him with the creative part of his brain where he was learning, but not knowing he was learning.”
Working on the book helped him in school. “His grades improved substantially,” Weatherford says. “He’s excelling.”
And, she says, “He’s not so frustrated. He doesn’t get so upset. He thinks, ‘I need to step back and organize these thoughts in my head.’”
More books are on the horizon, Weatherford says. “We’re looking at 10 books we have right now on our vision board.”
They dedicate a certain amount of time each day to writing. They’ll sit down, put some ideas on paper, and then come back to them later. After they finish the text, the two talk about what type of illustrations will go with each part of the book. “It’s teaching him to organize, slow down, patience, ask for help. All the things you struggle with in ADHD.”
They send the completed parts of the book to Trum before Burk goes to sleep at night. “When we’re going to bed, she’s getting her day started. So, I have to have these thoughts organized.”
Then, she says, “I’ll wake up the next morning and she’ll have a draft of it.”
Weatherford and Burk attended WriterFest Nashville about a month ago at Belmont University. They’ve taken some short book tours with their first book, but they’re planning a longer book tour this summer with both books. As well as, hopefully, a new book by then, she says. “We’re hoping to get it done by the end of the school year.”
Burk is ready to move on to the next phase of book writing. He recently asked, “Mom, is there any way we can start writing chapter books?”
Weatherford responded, “Maybe one day you can take over and start writing chapter books.”
Burk also came up with a side project: a hot sauce called “Burning Bunghole,” which they’re already selling.
“Every time he comes to me with an idea, I jump on it. I love it. I love that he’s using that creative part of his brain. Let dreams inspire you.”
And, she adds, “The sky’s the limit whatever we decide to do. I want to do whatever I can to help him.”
Weatherford’s advice to parents? “Just get to know your kids. Spend time with them. Put your phones away. We need to slow down and look at what’s in front of us. Figure out what makes your child tick.”
And, hopefully, everyone will live happily ever after.
The Continental Drifters were a band whose lineup alone would turn heads. Though members came and went over the decade or so of their existence, the personnel settled to include Peter Holsapple of the dB’s, Mark Walton of the Dream Syndicate, Vicki Peterson of the Bangles, Susan Cowsill of The Cowsills, and, most notably for Memphians, Robert Maché, the journeyman guitarist who played with Steve Wynn for years and now lives here, often seen playing with his wife Candace in Dan Montgomery’s band, or touring with Dayna Kurtz. Yet despite their collective pedigrees, they never quite “made it” in terms of sales or record deals, perhaps because all involved found the “supergroup” tag repulsive. That’s one of the few things they all could agree on, as is made clear in Sean Kelly’s new book, White Noise & Lightning: The Continental Drifters Story (Cool Dog Sound), which traces the group from before they coalesced until after they’d broken up. One strength of the book is that all living former members embraced this chance to speak freely and tell their story. And Holsapple is particularly blunt about the “supergroup” tag.
“We were hell-bent on not seeming like this purported busman’s holiday,” he tells Kelly. “We were so irked by that description that it was this sort of ‘sometime supergroup.’ It was like, ‘Fuck. You really are just not getting it, are you? This is a band.’”
That latter point also comes through loud and clear, as Kelly delves into the complex, Fleetwood Mac-level entanglements between the members that, despite making relations fraught at times, also sealed the family-like bond between them. And that bond seems to have been, in retrospect, a key to the group’s sound, a brand of roots-infused alt-rock with a strong focus on harmonies and songwriting that might today be labeled “Americana” but had no such pigeonhole in the ’90s.
Indeed, the book deftly conjures up the spirit of that era in Los Angeles, where the group began. The respected session drummer and producer Carlo Nuccio, who appropriated the band’s moniker from a group of the same name he’d played with in his native New Orleans, was a focal point, sparked by his relocation to L.A. and his talent for gathering like-minded souls around him. Eventually, he and friends Mark Walton and Gary Eaton were rooming together in what they called the “Batch Pad” (at a time when native Memphian David Catching was also in their orbit), and, sharing similar tastes, formed a band that also included guitarist Ray Ganucheau and keyboardist Dan McGough. By 1991, the newly formed Continental Drifters had taken up a Tuesday night residence at Raji’s, which soon became a scene unto itself.
That was a bit of a paradox at the time. As Greg Allen, who went on to found Omnivore Recordings with fellow Raji’s patron Cheryl Pawelski, tells Kelly, “There was no real scene in L.A. It’s not like it was the power-pop era or the new wave era or what have you. It was just a lot of whatever. The kind of void that the Drifters filled, especially with the shows happening every week — that was its own scene.”
The Raji’s residency nevertheless became legendary to those who participated, setting the aesthetic tone for all of the Drifters’ subsequent years: keeping things loose, inspired, and very much at the service of the songs more than any identifiable “sound” that could be marketed. The many rock veterans in and out of the band preferred to do as they pleased, rather than bow to the demands of a producer or label. Ultimately, as new members like Holsapple and Cowsill (eventually wed, then divorced), Peterson, or Maché joined the group, the group’s aesthetic, impervious to fickle fashion, carried on. This held true when they migrated piecemeal to New Orleans in the mid-’90s, destined to be as celebrated there as they had been in L.A.
Kelly’s book weaves this web of relationships into a tale driven by his love of the music. Prospective readers should revisit the group’s records before diving into this meandering tale: They are what make the vagaries of friendship, dating, marriage, divorce, and substance abuse among the members so compelling. Moreover, it was by remaining staunchly eclectic that the band defined its place in (or not in) the music industry. Being outsiders who were nonetheless revered by their fans defined the lives of all involved, as they all rejected grandstanding musicianship in favor of playing to the songs. And that approach, whether in L.A. or New Orleans, is why their records (and friendships) have endured.
A new compilation from Omnivore Recordings, White Noise & Lightning: The Best Of Continental Drifters, can be purchased here. And a new tribute album, We Are All Drifters: A Tribute to the Continental Drifters, has been released as a companion to Sean Kelly’s book. Proceeds from the tribute album benefit The Wild Honey Foundation.
Think of a pansy, the flower, pink or yellow, blue or deep purple, marked with sharply defined pigmentation or a soft blending of hues on the petals that fold over each other in layers.
That’s how Jasper Joyner pictures their identity as a nonbinary transmasc writer. It’s masculine and feminine, soft yet hardy, layered. It’s why Joyner titled their memoir, Pansy: A Black American Memoir, which was released on October 22nd.
Of course, pansy has another connotation, used to derogatorily describe gay men. But Joyner says, “I thought of that. I’ve been calling myself a pansy for 15 years. That’s not why I chose it [as a title], but I’m trying to reclaim that word.”
Joyner, now 34, set out to write a memoir some four years ago after reading Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde, who established a new genre called biomythography that combines history, biography, and myth into a narrative.
Joyner describes this style as a “mosaic” of “snapshots” of the author’s life. “I was really inspired to read more memoirs like it because it really made me start asking questions about myself,” they say.
It was almost like an obsession. They went on to read memoirs by Black queer writers, by Black Southern writers. They read Alice Walker and read “how she talked about how important it is for Black Southern writers to tell their stories.”
Joyner has always considered themself a writer, ever since childhood. They’ve written a young adult novel, Juniper Leaves, anda chapbook, AFlamboyance. They’re currently the managing editor for Focus Mid-South magazine.
Yet never did they intend to write a memoir. “After reading [so many though],” they say, “it was like it makes sense for me to add my story to this mosaic of stories because I didn’t see a lot of stories like mine with my similar experiences. … It’s worth it to go ahead and try to tell my story, not because it’s unique, but because it’s a human story that I think makes sense to share.”
“I feel like,” they add, “my particular experience with transness shows you that it’s much muddier than a lot of the ways transness is defined now because, in my belief, I never transitioned. I’ve always been this person, and I think everyone is constantly becoming more of themselves. … We can all see ourselves in that nuance.”
Told in nonlinear episodic snapshots in the biomythographic style of Audrea Lorde, Joyner’s memoir explores their Memphis upbringing in the ’90s, their time at Vanderbilt, finding themself in New York City, and more.
There are moments of intense vulnerability. “There’s a chapter in there where I talk about suicidal ideation that I almost wasn’t going to include, but transmasc folks in LGBTQ communities have the highest rate of suicidal ideation. You never really hear about it.”
But there are moments where Joyner holds back or leans into poetic truths and mythmaking. “I didn’t want this to be a story about a trans person who’s struggling. I wanted it to be a human story that people can relate to,” they say. “I didn’t want to accidentally exploit myself by focusing too much on any one of my identities.”
After all, this book was and is about more than themself. Joyner says that at only 34, many in the LGBTQ community would consider them a trans elder. “It’s a devastating fact, but at the same time, there are so many young trans folks who look at me and see, like, oh, you still exist. You’re still surviving, you’re thriving, and for a lot of young trans people, they don’t want to wait to see what that could look like.”
Joyner sees this firsthand in mentoring 20-something-year-olds in creative spaces and through the Sam & Devorah Foundation for Trans Youth.
That’s why Joyner didn’t wait until they were older to write their memoir, but it’s also why they took so much care with it. The book went though eight or so drafts with several readers’ feedback — an approach they hadn’t taken before with their published work. “I write work like Pansy for them and also my younger self,” Joyner says.
Jasper Joyner’s Pansy can be purchased at DeMoir Books & Things and other independent bookstores as well as online. Pansy was named one of BookLife’s Best of 2024 by Publishers Weekly.
As the weather chills out or warms back up this October, there’s never a better time to curl up with a book because it’s always a good time to curl up with a book. And therein lies the issue, because even if I know when it’s a good time to read (always), how am I to know what to read? Enter decision paralysis — unless, of course, you check out the ever-reliable recommendations by your local booksellers that they’ve so kindly suggested here. And we thank them for it.
The perfect single sitting horror story! There’s no slow ramp up to this book. The story immediately takes off with a lil sci-fi, a lil gore, a lil pulse-racing thriller, and an incredibleending! This is a book I wish I could read again for the first time! — Mandy Martin, Novel
In a world where we have access to an endless sinkhole of content to consume, the peril of endless possibilities can be daunting. The Husbands explores these ideas in a brilliant, snappy and comical way.
Lauren comes home one night to find her husband waiting for her. The only problem is she doesn’t actually have a husband. However, she does find that she has a magical attic that holds infinite husbands. When one husband goes up the attic stairs, he is replaced with another husband and a respective life to boot. Lauren is amazed by the endless options at her fingertips, as time passes she starts sending the husbands up for more and more trivial reasons. Why? Because she can! What could go wrong? Well, maybe a lot. This book had me laughing out loud while also contemplating the modern world in bold new ways. I highly recommend this novel for something as thought-provoking as it is also fresh, eccentric, relatable, daring, and juicy. — Lillian Khattab, Novel
The hit-singer of “Leave (Get Out)” has released her breathtakingly candid memoir. Signed to a major recording deal at just 12 years old, JoJo catapulted to the top of the pop- and R&B-infused charts in the mid-2000s and experienced her share of highs and lows. This memoir is perfect for any millennial or Gen-Zer interested in hearing her story. — Jeremee DeMoir, DeMoir Books & Things
Flamboyants is a collection of 14 essays wherein Johnson reveals how American culture has been shaped by icons who are both Black and Queer — and whose stories deserve to be celebrated in their entirety. — Jeremee DeMoir, DeMoir Books & Things
Richard Powers writes books that are both entertaining and important. He comes to bring us a sense of wonder. In Playground, he does for oceans what he did for forests in The Overstory. He takes four disparate lives and tells their stories, which tie together in a breathtaking and perfectly timed dance of science, humanity, and awe. He does what only the truest artists can do: He makes you see the world anew. — Corey Mesler, Burke’s Book Store
Horror recommendations for when you don’t know what to read or are just now getting into horror
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: a classic gothic short story about a woman going insane that will leave you uneasy:
Ring by Koji Suzuki: a disturbing ghost story about a father uncovering a cursed VHS tape while researching a series of unexplained deaths — Chloe Mesler, Burke’s Book Store
All books mentioned can be purchased at the respective bookstore locations or their websites as linked. For upcoming book events, including book clubs and author signings, visit the Flyer’s event calendar.
Our nation has a distinct literary tradition, which some dub the American bildungsroman, that delves into the provincial life of a protagonist in his or her youth, then reveals, layer by layer, the stages of learning and mind-opening encounters by which the narrator learns of the wider world, thereby transcending provincialism and achieving a kind of worldly wisdom. And such books, often loosely autobiographical, can, by way of setting the scene for the protagonist’s eventual escape, offer rich and nuanced portraits of the small-town milieu in which they were raised. Writings as disparate as Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel and Woody Guthrie’s Bound for Glory paint indelible portraits of daily existence in small towns.
Now, local author, filmmaker, musician, and photographer Willy Bearden has produced such a work about his hometown of Rolling Fork in his semi-fictionalized memoir, Mississippi Hippie: A Life in 49 Pieces. And, in its segmented, episodic telling, it reads like another great fragmented bildungsroman, Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio — but with a laconic Southern drawl.
Like Anderson’s masterpiece, Bearden’s memoir is, as he notes in the first sentence, “a work of literature.” And yet he’s committed to telling the story of his life. “Memory has its own story to tell,” he writes. “But I have done my best to make it tell a truthful story.”
Bearden has an artist’s commitment to truth-telling, and, as becomes clear over the course of his youthful epiphanies, that unflinching honesty served him well in his quest for a life of some significance. As the Tennessee Williams quote beginning the book states, “No one is ever free until they tell the truth about themselves and the life into which they’ve been cast.”
For Bearden, that starts with a long, hard look at his father. This being a somewhat conversational read, though, it takes him a while to settle on the opening scene. First, he tells the reader of his curious habit, at the age of 11, of listing everyone he’d known who had died. It marks a vivid through-line to the book itself, written in his 70s, filling that same need.
Then, skipping ahead in time, Bearden confronts the idea of “woke” culture, a descendant of the “hippie” culture that Bearden threw himself into as a teen in the ’60s. And, as he writes, “I am proud of my hippie roots,” yet the book makes clear that such pride comes after long years of confronting the very un-hippie culture of Rolling Fork.
The book really gets started when, after such preambles, Bearden unearths a short story he wrote in 1984. His father has been returned to the home where Bearden, then 10, was being raised by his mother. “What until now had been the complacent, resigned look of an alcoholic had turned wild and frantic as if some demon inhabited his skinny 130-pound frame.” As the father is unceremoniously dumped into a bed, the stage is set for Bearden’s early years and the chaotic family life he endured.
But, as reflected upon by the author decades later, it’s a thoughtful portrait of such chaos. That’s true of any of the local characters young Bearden interacts with, as the stories skip back and forth in time, often hinting at Bearden’s development as a thinker and a questioner later in life. For, while he wasn’t a great student and didn’t really learn to read until after he was 10, he was doggedly curious and reflective. The folk songs his brother played him jolted him into imagining other values and life ways, and the growing counterculture of the ’60s only confirmed those humanistic values, even if he met some sketchy characters along the way. That in turn served him well as he ventured out into the world (hitchhiking widely from 1969-1976) and greeted all he met with a mixture of Sherwood Anderson’s keen observational eye and Woody Guthrie’s everyman approachability.
That hopeful, clear-eyed, and even bawdy approach to the world rings out from every page of this book, and it’s still heard in Bearden’s current work as a historian, filmmaker, and raconteur. Knowing that Bearden became a key player in Memphis’ progressive community helps make sense of what he passed through to get there, from the unsavory drunks to the homespun wisdom of Rolling Fork’s working people. Seeing the poverty and racism of his hometown didn’t give him a permanent scowl. Rather, it only made him more determined to keep searching, just over the flat Delta horizon, for some kind of redemption.
Burke’s Book Store will host a reading and book signing by Willy Bearden on Thursday, September 5, at 6 p.m.
Jamie Stewart is the creative force behind the experimental pop group, Xiu Xiu. Anything That Moves is the exact kind of book fans of Stewart’s music would expect them to write. A bizarre and painfully vulnerable exploration of desire, identity, and a desperation for human connection. An open wound of a book. It follows Stewart’s exploration of sexuality and desire from early adolescence onward. Reading it almost feels transgressive, like reading someone’s diary. This semi-memoir is exhibited in the form of a series of vignettes and essays. Making it not only as vulnerable as a diary, but very much structured like one.
The extreme intimacy of Stewart’s book also feels expansive. They invite us to reflect on our own desires and vulnerabilities. Stewart’s voice is unique, lyrical, surreal, and heartbreaking. Anything that moves is one of the most compelling books I’ve read in years, and the grossest book I’ve ever read cover to cover. An absolute gift to the world of contemporary literature. — Kole Oakes, Burke’s Book Store
Blood at the Root was a hot topic on BookTok (the reader-friendly side of TikTok). The debut novel from Southerner LaDarrion Williams features a young man who is coming into his magic and whose life is shrouded in mystery. With new powers and a checkered past, Malik is given an invitation to a magical HBCU (historical Black college and university) where he’ll hone his magic and find clues to put the pieces of his past together. Blood at the Root explores not only the roots and secrets that connect us in an unforgettable contemporary setting, but also introduces a new world of magic to fans of Harry Potter and other fantastical series. — Jeremee DeMoir, DeMoir Books & Things
The third and final book in the Legacy of Orisha series, CAA returns us to Zelie’s journey! After all she’s done to return magic to Orisha, she’s facing a new and dangerous foe. However, she’s not alone. Joined by Amari, Tzain, and Inan, Zelie meets new companions who will help her fight to put an end to the war the new enemy is about to bring to the world. Written by NYT bestselling author Tomi Adeyemi, this final installment has been much anticipated and the team at DeMoir Books couldn’t wait to dive in once it was released in late June 2024! — Jeremee DeMoir, DeMoir Books & Things
In Ascension, is an import from Scottish author Martin MacInnes, released in the U.S. this year. A literary fiction that blurs the lines between speculative and science fiction, it’s set in the immediate future with the climate crisis we face now as it will progress as predicted.
The story follows a marine biologist from the Netherlands, a land recovered from and ever-contesting against the water. She studies ancient microorganisms, archaea, and the origins of life. One theory is that these first life forms originated in hydrothermal vents, and so when a trench in the ocean is newly discovered, she joins the research expedition to map and measure it.
From the bottom of the deepest depths of our ocean and planet, to where life started, what it can survive, how the findings can be used, and where that can take us, this eco-fiction spans a larger than human scale. — Dianna Dalton, Novel
An honest look into the world of therapy! This poignant story gives insight to how a therapist approaches their work while also showing what therapy can look like on the other side of the couch as the client.
You follow Gottlieb’s client’s through the lens of the therapist, learning what sort of intentional work one might do to help clients feel comfortable enough to trust the process and heal. Intermixed within chapters, you also get to experience Gottlieb’s journey as she goes through her own therapy after her personal life takes a dramatic hit. The perfect showcase that anyone can grow with therapy, even the therapists themselves! — Mandy Martin, Novel
Once Rex’s father figures out Rex is gay, he is given an ultimatum: to become straight or get kicked out of the family.
This book shook me to my core. Rex is kicked out of his home by his parents, betrayed by the people who are supposed to love him the most. What follows is a life on the streets in New Orleans. As a gay teen experiencing homelessness, Rex constantly struggles for the basic needs of food, water, shelter, and sleep. The people he meets do not always have his best interests at heart and often cause more harm than good.
With no place to call home, no one to look out for him, no safety net, Rex barely gets by, and most of the time he hangs onto his dignity by a loose, fraying thread. This memoir is gut-wrenching and will break your heart. His future looks very bleak, and when it looks like he may not make it, a beacon of light emerges when he least expects it.
A true story of survival, Rex tells it all with honesty and grace.
Road Home is the third and last book in Rex Ogle’s memoir trilogy which also includes Free Lunch and Punching Bag. — Sheri Bancroft, Novel
There Is No Ethan is a dark and unsettling read. Set in the early days of social media, the protagonist’s toxic obsession and self-delusion are both captivating and repulsive. Akbari’s writing is unflinching and raw, making it hard to look away from the train wreck. A haunting and uncomfortable exploration of the human psyche, but not for the faint of heart. This book will linger long after the final page is turned. — Blake C. Helis, Burke’s Book Store
All books mentioned can be purchased at the respective bookstore locations. For upcoming book events, including book clubs and author signings, visit the Flyer’s event calendar.
She realized this at the age of 3 when her father read her Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” one night instead of a bedtime story. “I was instantly in love,” she says. “I thought it was the best thing I’d ever heard. It felt like almost like hip-hop, because it was a rap. It rhymed. … I asked him to read it again. I was so in love with it, and he did. I stopped him, and I said, ‘This is what I’m meant to do.’ I said, ‘I’m going to be a great American poet, like whoever this guy is’. And he said, ‘Okay, well then you’ll have to be three times as good because you’re Black, you’re a woman, and you were born into a country built to enslave you.’
“So I always knew that it would be a harder road for me as a Black American woman to get anything published, for anyone to even listen to me, let alone the biggest publishing house in the world. This country does not treat even Black little girls as if they’re worth much. I knew the road ahead of me would be a long and arduous one, and I might not make it.”
Yet she, arguably, has made it. Her debut novel Memphis, released in April of 2022, was a national bestseller and a Read With Jenna Book Club Pick. All the bookstores in Memphis carried her book. “Local businesses have made me who I am, put me on the map,” the writer says. “Women in Memphis found my book, especially Black women in Memphis. They have put me on a map.
“To break out into this industry has been a godsend,” Stringfellow adds. “I don’t think it’s just talent and hard work. This world does not give that many opportunities to unpublished people of color, so I’ve been very lucky. It’s nothing short of a miracle. I just wish there were more opportunities for writers and authors of color to be more widely read in this nation.”
This isn’t anything new, of course. Only 250 years ago Phillis Wheatley could not get her poetry published in the U.S., a fact upon which Stringfellow reflects after the June release her collection of poetry Magic Enuff (The Dial Press). “It’s a huge historical achievement, I think, for the literary canon,” she says. “I’m very humbled.”
Poetry, after all, is some of the oldest literature we have — think of Homer, Sappho, Vergil. These are the works we’ve labeled as “classics.” “[Poetry] is, to me, the highest form of literary work,” Stringfellow says. “I think poetry is revolutionary. I think it has the ability to reshape nations. … In a novel, you have a whole chapter to get your point across — I’m not knocking novelists, and novels, I love them. I’m in the middle of a novel — but in a poem, you have not even a page to get your point across. You might only have a line or not even a whole word, a syllable.”
The verses might be fleeting, but their impacts are all the more striking, the smallest detail becoming a powerful source of imagery. In Magic Enuff, Stringfellow’s poems are deeply personal. “These were written from my experiences over the years. The narrative voice and the poetry is often just my voice. Some of these poems have taken a long, long time to come to light. This collection is my life’s work. My art speaks for herself, and she speaks loud and clear and proudly.”
There are vulnerable moments within the pages, moments where she talks about her dad leaving her mom and her own divorce from her ex-husband; there are haikus about love, poems about the bonds between women and living in the South. At its core, Stringfellow observes, the book is intrinsically and unashamedly political, even in the personal. “The simple act of a Black woman sitting down to write a sonnet is a political act,” Stringfellow says. “It’s a revolutionary act.”
Many poems, though, are explicitly political, like those dedicated to Breonna Taylor, Tyre Nichols, Trayvon Martin’s mother, and Gianna Floyd, all who were killed by or whose loved ones were killed by racially motivated police violence.
“Until Black children aren’t being gunned down in America for simply ringing somebody’s doorbell; until Black children aren’t having the police being called on them by white women for just being outside, being loud, because all children are all loud; until we have basic civil rights in this country, my writing will always be political,” Stringfellow says. “It has to be. Nina Simone once said it’s the duty of the artists to reflect the times in which they find themselves. And unfortunately, I find myself in America in 2024 in some rather turbulent times.”
Yet Stringfellow also embraces the role of the writer as a bearer of hope. She notes how the other week, she saw a woman sitting at the Memphis Chess Club reading Memphis before Magic Enuff’s release. “It was so surreal to see my book out there [even two years later],” she says. “I hope the same happens with this poetry collection — that I see her, I see the cover, and a Black woman is reading her somewhere in Memphis. That is the ideal dream for me. That is the goal, to just bring a little bit of joy to Black women here in the South. Every book I write will be for the glory of Black Southern women.”
Indeed in her poem, “Hot Combs Catfish Crumbs and Bad Men,” she writes, “God can stay asleep/ these women in my life are magic enuff.”
Corey Mesler seems to have literary works in every stage of production. A list of his published works has 33 volumes of poetry and 21 prose books. He’s got other works accepted for publication but not yet printed. And he’s working on a novel now, which probably actually means he’s got several going on at various stages in the creative process.
But let’s just focus on this week when he’s having a reading and book signing for two that are fresh off the presses. Vitamins for Ygdrasil and Other Poems is in the verse category and The World is Neither Stacked For You nor Against You: Selected Stories is the prose offering. (The event is at Burke’s Book Store July 25th from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.).
So, no novel? We just have to be a bit patient — one is coming next year, but it’ll happen since Mesler says he now only writes poems or novels. “I’d rather be writing a novel than anything else in the world,” he says. “And poems I write in between on days that I don’t work on the novel. They just sort of come.”
He’s not even that much into short stories these days, despite his new selected stories book. “I got a little tired of the form, and it takes such precision,” he allows. That’s why there are only a couple of new stories in the book; mostly it’s previously published but hard-to-find tales. But if you haven’t read ’em, they’re now in this neat package for your delectation.
Despite Mesler’s current view of the short story form, he was encouraged to assemble the works by Steve Stern, the acclaimed author from Memphis. “He said, ‘You ought to take the strongest stories and put ’em together.’ And I said, ‘Okay, that’s a great idea. Will you do an introduction for them?’” That’s some literary horse-trading there.
There’s much to appreciate in the titles alone. Try these: “The Slim Harpo Blues,” “Any Day is a Good Day that Doesn’t Start with Killing a Rat with a Hammer,” “God and the Devil: The Exit Interview.” Irresistible. As Mesler says, “I love titling things. I love titling poems. In stories and in novels, I often will have a musician character so I can make up song titles.”
He’s also got the title mojo working in Vitamins for Ygdrasil: “Franny and Zooey Deschanel,” “World Full of Spooky,” “Learn to Love Your Narcotics.” The poems are not tied together thematically, which Mesler regrets a little bit. “My poetry collections always come when all of a sudden, I realized that I published a bunch of poems that I probably should gather. I wish I was one of those poets that worked thematically.”
The volume is not entirely random, though. There are several poems that refer to Ygdrasil, a giant oak in Mesler’s yard that provides acorns of inspiration. And there is inspiration there as well in the form of Richard Powers’ novel The Overstory. “I fell in love with his idea of the forest as a creature itself. Everything’s connected in a forest and it’s fascinating — the symbiosis that goes on in a forest. Trees talk to each other; they save each other. It’s all a design.”
So expect two volumes at Thursday’s event, thematically unconnected but both with content that is funny, profound, thoughtful, and very likely to make you stop and think. It’s also worth noting that the two books of literary art also have fascinating fine art on the covers. Vitamins for Ygdrasil has a splendid work of a tree (as you might imagine) by local artist Martha Kelly. And for The World is Neither Stacked, Mesler is using a work by noted illustrator Edward Carey that — like a good short story — will make you think.
