Tag: Novel

Categories
News News Feature

Shop Local: East Memphis

This holiday season, we’re asking readers to support local and consider these and others for their gift-giving needs.

Bluff City Toffee

Stephanie Upshaw turned her candy-making hobby into a business in 2016 and creates made-from-scratch treats for Memphians to savor. We love the classic Milk Chocolate Pecan Toffee ($10.95/4 oz.). Available at the Bluff City Toffee storefront (5160 Sanderlin #5), Buster’s Liquors & Wines, High Point Grocery, and other local retail locations, as well as bluffcitytoffee.com.

Novel

Novel offers a book for every taste, including the latest cookbook by local authors Justin Fox Burks and Amy Lawrence. You don’t have to be an herbivore to enjoy Vegetarian Cooking for Two: 80 Perfectly Portioned Recipes for Healthy Eating ($16.99). The dishes are easy to make, with simple ingredients and instructions that don’t require the skills, equipment, or time of a professional chef. Visit Novel at 387 Perkins Extended or novelmemphis.com.

Cotton Row Uniques

With home decor, apparel, artwork, antiques, bath and body products, pet toys, and so much more, this is a one-stop-shop for your gift-list needs. We think these honeycomb planters, available in three sizes ($14.50-$24.95), are adorable — and perfect for those with green thumbs. Visit Cotton Row Uniques at 4615 Poplar, Suite 3, or cottonrowuniques.com.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Just As I Am: Novel Hosts Virtual Event with Cicely Tyson

Fashion model turned actress of stage and screen, Cicely Tyson has had a career spanning more than 70 years. She has been nominated for countless awards honoring her craft. She has won many. She even became the first Black woman to receive an honorary Oscar for her work, 45 years after her Academy Award-nominated performance in Sounder.

Now, in her ninth decade, she says, “I am a woman who, at long last, has something meaningful to say.”

She has put her meaningful words to the page in Just As I Am. It seems extraordinary that the actress, lecturer, activist, and one of the most respected talents in American theater and film history has been able to encapsulate her life between the covers of the 432-page memoir.

Cicely Tyson’s Just As I Am

Tyson has laid bare her life saying, “Just As I Am is my truth. It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside.”

Tyson will be honored on Thursday at an online event where her new autobiography will be released. Novel is among the bookstores selected to participate in the book launch. The event will begin in conversation with Cicely Tyson and Whoopi Goldberg and be presented by HarperCollins with Girls Write Now along with editorial director Tracy Sherrod, and Well-Read Black Girl founder Glory Edim.

The ticket price includes one hardcover copy of the book and a once-in-a-lifetime virtual meeting with Tyson.

Online Event with Cicely Tyson: Just As I Am, from Novel, novelmemphis.com, Thursday, Jan. 28, 5 p.m., $32-$38.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Ecco and Libro Executive Chef Armando Gagliano Pays Homage to Childhood Dishes

CREDIT: Armando Gagliano

Echoes of the past drift through Ecco on Overton Park in the form of tantalizing aromas. Executive chef Armando Gagliano occasionally features his take on Italian and German dishes his mom, Ecco owner Sabine Bachmann, served when he was growing up.

“I’ll do all the stuff she used to cook for me and my brothers,” Gagliano says. “Some of them have been on the menu as my take on the dish. I’ll change it up just a little bit, but I always try to incorporate things that I remember growing up that my mom fed us. Put it on there as close to what my mom used to serve us.”

Rouladen, a German dish his mother, who is German, made for them, will be a special January 8th and 9th at Ecco. The family-inspired dish also will be available throughout January at Libro, where Gagliano is executive chef and his brother, Mario Gagliano, is head chef.

Armando Gagliano

Rouladen

Growing up, Gagliano and his brothers ate more pasta than potatoes. “My mom mainly cooked us Italian food ’cause German food is always braised meats and potatoes and onions.

“We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so we probably ate pasta five nights a week. It’s so cheap. It’s one of the best things somebody can eat.”

They served Mama’s Pasta, a “spicy Southern bacon pasta,” as a springtime/summer special at Ecco. It’s “like a South American dish mixed with Italian pasta. It’s bacon that she rendered. She chopped up the rendered bacon with tomato sauce. And she’d usually put in a little hot sugar, hot sauce, and garlic. It was a spicy marinara, but instead of using ground pork or something like that, it was bacon.”

Spaghetti puttanesca is a childhood dish that also shows up at Ecco. “That’s a very old Southern coast recipe. There are different variations of it, but it primarily consists of garlic, capers, kalamata olives, anchovies, and then some sort of whole or diced-up tomatoes, or tomato purée. We use tomato purée. It’s what the fishermen would get to eat after they came back into the docks after being out in the Mediterranean fishing. They would use anchovies to make this dish.”

Rouladen, a Christmas tradition at their home, is “essentially a sirloin steak that you pound the hell out of with a mallet till it’s really thin. You brush Dijon mustard on it and line it with bacon and thinly sliced yellow onions. You roll the whole thing up like a fruit roll and either tie it off or use toothpicks, then sear that in a large pan. After it’s browned on all sides, take it out, and in the same pan put carrots, onions, celery and cook those down until they’re soft.

“Then you’re going to hit it with red wine. However much you want to use. You deglaze all those vegetables in chicken or beef stock. Preferably, beef stock since that’s what you’re cooking. Bring that to a boil. You return the seared rouladen that you set to the side back in the pot and reset the temperature to a very low simmer. Then after about two hours, they’re done. And you can let them go longer if you want them more tender.

“You take them out. And all the vegetables and wines and juices it was cooking in, throw that in a blender. Blend it up really well and then press it through a sieve or a colander. Those juices are the gravy. With the vegetables, it’s already thick enough. My mom would always boil some potatoes to go with them. You over-boil them till they’re really soft. [We use] baby new potatoes. Put them whole on the plate and mash them. Put the rouladen on top of those mashed potatoes, and the gravy goes over all of it.

“It’s a very rustic dish. Rouladen and gravy. It’s a German pot roast kind of deal.”

Ecco on Overton Park is at 1585 Overton Park; (901) 410-8200. Libro is at Novel bookstore at 387 Perkins Extended; (901) 922-5526.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Give Memphis! Great Local Gift Ideas for the Holidays

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

If 2020 has proven anything, it’s that we need to come together to support our community — the health, happiness, and longevity of our fellow Memphians count on it now more than ever. While we may not be able to gather with friends and family for gift exchanges like we have in the past, we can still lift their spirits with thoughtful presents that help our local restaurants, retail outlets, and entrepreneurs keep doing what they do. Think local this season!

A Box of Magic

Have a giftee in your life who seeks to better understand their own power, to look within and outside for growth and restoration? Give them a box of magic, or as Sami Harvey, owner of Foxglove Pharm, calls it: a Coven Box.

“I’ve always been amazed by Mother Nature’s ability to heal, and I love finding new ways to use her ingredients to solve my problems,” Harvey says. “I started Foxglove Pharm in 2017 because I wanted to share some of those solutions with my community.”

Each subscription box ($40/month) includes a rotating variety of handcrafted herbal “remeteas” (About Last Night: Hangover Tea, Out of the Blue: Third Eye Tea, and others), scented oils, Resting Witch Face skincare products, rituals, and more special items that “honor the moon, the current astrological phase, and a featured plant.”

Sami Harvey

Each month, she partners with another local maker or small business to spotlight their wares. For her Foxglove offerings, Harvey is “the only witch in the kitchen,” so the products are small-batch and made with “ethically sourced, organic, sustainable ingredients.”

Regarding the rituals included in a box (or separately on the website), Harvey says, “These aren’t like supernatural spells that will destroy all your enemies and turn Michelle Obama into your BFF. But they’re ways to meditate and channel your energy into manifesting a better reality for yourself. The real magic ingredient is you and your intention.”

Visit foxglovepharm.com to order a Coven Box and shop products. — Shara Clark

Feed an Artist

The old cliché about “starving artists” has seldom been more true. Buying art is often the last thing folks are thinking about during tough times like these, but our Memphis painters and sculptors and photographers — and their galleries — have bills to pay, just like the rest of us. That’s why this might be a great year to put a new painting on your wall, or gift someone a work of art so they’ll be reminded of you every day.

Courtesy Jay Etkin Gallery

Untitled by John Ryan

There are many fine galleries in Memphis. Here are just a few: L Ross, David Lusk, Jay Etkin, Crosstown Arts, Orange Mound Gallery, Art Village, Cooper-Young Gallery, and B. Collective. Artists featured include Matthew Hasty, Jeanne Seagle, John Ryan, Mary Long, Roy Tamboli, Eunika Rogers, Cat Pena, Yancy Villa-Calvo, Hamlett Dobbins, Anne Siems, Tim Craddock, and many, many more. In addition, many galleries are featuring special holiday shows.

End what has been a nightmarish year on an upbeat note: Buy a piece of art. It’s good for your heart. — Bruce VanWyngarden

Let Them Eat Cake

I’d be happy to receive a Memphis Bourbon Caramel Cake from Sugar Avenue Bakery, either in or out of my stocking. This is the Sugar Avenue collaboration with Old Dominick Distillery.

Just listening to Sugar Avenue owner Ed Crenshaw describe the six-inch cake makes me crave a slice or three: “The cake is four layers. Each layer is literally soaked in a bourbon caramel sauce. And then our caramel icing, which we make from scratch.”

Courtesy Ben Fant

Sugar Avenue cake

Sugar Avenue worked with Old Dominick’s master distiller/senior vice president Alex Castle to come up with the perfect blend of cake and bourbon. Old Dominick’s Huling Station Straight Bourbon Whiskey was chosen for the cake, which has “a great hint of bourbon flavor,” Crenshaw says. “We add bourbon to the icing and ice the cake with it.”

To help you get even more into the holiday spirit, Sugar Avenue Bakery recently began adding two-ounce jars of extra caramel sauce with every bourbon-flavored cake.

Memphis Bourbon Caramel Cakes are $55 each, and they’re available at sugaravenue.com. — Michael Donahue

Accessorize in Style

When Memphians need to give the gift of stylish living, they turn to Cheryl Pesce, the jewelry and lifestyle store in Crosstown Concourse. The store takes its name from its owner, Cheryl Pesce, a jewelry maker, entrepreneur, and all-around style guru.

This month, Pesce opened a second store in the Laurelwood Shopping Center, giving Bluff City-area shoppers double the chances to find — and give — stylish accoutrements. “I’m banking on Memphis,” Pesce explains. And Memphis seems ready to support Pesce. “We had a grand open house, social distancing into the parking lot, and it went well.”

Courtesy Cheryl Pesce

Handmade jewelry from Cheryl Pesce

The store opening story is just the tip of the breaking-news iceberg, though. Pesce tells me excitedly that she’s been in touch with fashion designer Patrick Henry, aka Richfresh, about his newly designed Henry Mask. “I spoke with him today and — drumroll — we will now be carrying his masks in my Laurelwood store.”

But wait! That’s still not all. The ink is still fresh on a deal for Pesce to carry Germantown-produced Leovard skincare products. “I will be his only brick-and-mortar store in the country,” Pesce says. “So there are a lot of cool things happening, most of them local.”

In the smaller store in Crosstown, Pesce sells hand-sewn baby items, masks, Christmas ornaments, and anything with the Crosstown logo — she’s the official source for Crosstown-brand goods. Laurelwood is larger and a little more deluxe. “One of the focuses for that store is local and regional artisans,” Pesce says. She carries Mo’s Bows, Paul Edelstein paintings, and, of course, hand-crafted jewelry. “That’s really my wheelhouse.

“My studio is at Laurelwood,” Pesce says, “so not only is it made in Memphis, made by me, but it’s all under one roof now. The store, the studio. You can literally come pick out your own pearls — ‘I want this pearl on that earring’ — and then I craft it for you right there.”

Cheryl Pesce is located at 1350 Concourse Avenue, Suite 125, and at 374 Grove Park Road South, Suite 104. Find out more at (901) 308-6017 or at cherylpesce.com. — Jesse Davis

Good Reads

There’s something that comes from holding the edges of a book and being taken to a distant land or wondrous world. Whether it’s due to happenstance or the crazy and confusing world in which we find ourselves now, I have been reading more and more as the months drag on. To fuel my ever-growing hunger for words and phrases completed on the page, Novel has been my go-to place.

Novel is proof that when you are doing something you love, the results will follow. The bookstore, founded in 2017, is the go-to for other local book enthusiasts, too — and with good reason. Their staff will go to the moon and back to help you find the book that fits you just right, and if you’re looking for something specific, chances are they will be just as excited about it as you are.

Matthew J. Harris

of what gift to give this season.

Many of their aisles have felt like a second home to me the past few months. And with books in every genre, it is often easier to ask them what they don’t have, rather than what they do. Personally, I love their new-this-year home delivery option, which offers a safe way to give the gift of literature this holiday season. — Matthew J. Harris

Hit the Boards

This year has given us plenty of time to learn new skills. And what better way to get your mind pumping in both a constructive and competitive fashion than with a game of chess?

The Memphis Chess Club recently opened its new café/headquarters Downtown at 195 Madison Avenue, and the three levels of annual memberships make for a great gift, whether someone is looking to seriously pursue an interest in the game or just learn a few tips and tricks.

Samuel X. Cicci

A Memphis Chess Club membership isn’t as risky a move as the Queen’s Gambit.

The social membership ($50) allows members to play chess in the café area at any time, with tables, pieces, and clocks all provided. The full membership ($100), meanwhile, affords all of the social perks but provides unlimited and free access to all classes and tournaments, which are held at the club weekly. It also offers discounts on merchandise, and members are able to check out materials from the club’s chess library, which contains old magazines and strategy books.

For whole families looking to kickstart an interest in the game? The family membership ($150) contains all full membership benefits and includes two adults and all the children in a household.

And, hey, if chess isn’t your thing, the spacious café is a great space to just hang out or study while sipping on some brewed-in-house coffee or munching on one of chef Grier Cosby’s specialty pizzas.

Visit memphischessclub.com/join for more information. — Samuel X. Cicci

The Gift of Grub

Food is fun and helps define Memphis culture. Those who make that food and fun are in trouble.

Restaurants have maybe suffered more than any small business during this pandemic. Restrictions on them have come and gone and may come again soon. Memphis restaurateurs have shown amazing resilience in these ups and downs. They’ve shifted business models, adapted to the latest health directives, and adjusted staff levels (laying off workers and hiring them back) to match it all.

Memphis Restaurant Association/Facebook

Support local restaurants — so they can stick around.

However, we forever lost some Memphis favorites, like Lucky Cat and Grove Grill. The National Restaurant Association said nearly 100,000 restaurants across the country closed either permanently or for the long-term six months into the pandemic. Nearly 3 million employees have lost their jobs. Help restaurants out and have food fun, too. This holiday season, buy gift cards from our local restaurants.

At the pandemic’s beginning in March, we told you about a national push to buy “dining bonds” or “restaurant bonds.” Many Memphis restaurants jumped in — many selling gift cards at deep discounts. For restaurants, gift cards are quick infusions of cash, helpful in tough times.

So instead of that scarf you’re kind of on the fence about, spend the same amount on a restaurant they love. It’ll be unexpected and, yes, come with some delayed gratification — delicious delayed gratification. Present it not as a gift card but as that dish they love from that place they love.

Sing it with me: “Everybody knows, a burger and some mistletoe help to make the season bright. Memphis foodies, with their eyes all aglow, will find it hard to sleep tonight.”

Gift cards are available at almost every restaurant and for almost any amount. Check websites and socials for details. — Toby Sells

Music to Their Ears

Remember when giving music was a thing? Physical things like LPs, CDs, and cassettes could be wrapped. But now that everything’s ethereal, there’s still a way to give the gift that keeps on giving: Patreon. Musicians are embracing this platform more and more, and it’s working for them. A subscription to their accounts may just be the perfect gift for the superfan in your life who already has everything.

Mike Doughty (Soul Coughing, Ghost of Vroom) relies on his Patreon subscribers for both income and inspiration. As he told the Detroit Metro Times, “Doing a song a week is amazing, and that is really what, if I had my druthers, I’d do for the rest of my life.” Patrons can subscribe at different levels, each with premiums like CDs and T-shirts, but everyone paying at least $5 a month can access Doughty’s song-a-week and more.

Greg Cravens

Other Memphis-affiliated singer/songwriters like Eric Lewis, J.D. Reager, and (coming in December) Marcella and Her Lovers also have accounts. And last month, label and music retailer Goner Records began offering Patreon subscriptions that include access to the Goner archives and exclusive music and videos.

Patreon’s site notes that “there isn’t currently a way to gift patronage,” but if you get creative, you can search for an artist on patreon.com and buy a subscription in a friend’s or family member’s name — and they can thank you all through the year. — Alex Greene

Support Arts and Culture

“A plague on both your houses!” cried the dying Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, and it seems the COVID-19 pandemic took that sentiment to heart, emptying out our theaters and concert halls and thinning out attendance at museums. But still they persisted. The organizations behind the arts we love are still at work online, virtually, distancing, and striving to keep the arts alive — especially in programs aimed at young people.

You can help the old-fashioned way by getting season subscriptions and memberships for whenever the lights come back on — and they could use that support right now. Or make a simple donation. Help keep Memphis culture alive by giving gifts on behalf of the following, but don’t be limited by this partial list — if you have other favorites, give them a cup o’ kindness as well.

Jon W. Sparks

Spring, Summer, Fall at the Brooks Museum by Wheeler Williams

Performing arts organizations:

• Playhouse on the Square (playhouseonthesquare.org)

• Theatre Memphis (theatrememphis.org)

• Opera Memphis (operamemphis.org)

• Ballet Memphis (balletmemphis.org)

• New Ballet Ensemble (newballet.org)

• Cazateatro (cazateatro.org)

• New Moon Theatre (newmoontheatre.org)

• Hattiloo Theatre (hattiloo.org)

• Tennessee Shakespeare Company (tnshakespeare.org)

• Memphis Black Arts Alliance (memphisblackarts.org)

• Emerald Theatre Company (etcmemphistheater.com)

Museums and galleries:

• Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (brooksmuseum.org)

• Dixon Gallery and Gardens (dixon.org)

• National Civil Rights Museum (civilrightsmuseum.org)

• Metal Museum (metalmuseum.org)

• Stax Museum of American Soul Music (staxmuseum.com)

• Pink Palace Museum (memphismuseums.org)

• Children’s Museum of Memphis (cmom.com)

• Fire Museum of Memphis (firemuseum.org) — Jon W. Sparks

Basket or Box It for a Gift That Rocks It

Need something sweet for your honey this holiday season? Thistle & Bee has the gift that gives twice. A relaxing gift box contains raw Memphis honey, a milk and honey soap bar, and a pure beeswax candle ($20). Every item is handcrafted and directly supports women survivors to thrive through a journey of healing and hope.

Social enterprise director at Thistle & Bee, Ali Pap Chesney, drops a stinger: “We partner with other businesses, too. Feast & Graze uses our honey.”

Feast & Graze/Facebook

Feast & Graze

The cheese and charcuterie company Feast & Grace is co-owned by Cristina McCarter, who happens to co-own City Tasting Box. Boxes are filled with goodies promoting local Black-owned businesses like Pop’s Kernel and The Waffle Iron. An exclusive limited-quantity holiday gift box, Sugar and Spice, just rolled out for the season in two sizes — regular ($74.99) and ultimate ($124.99).

Memphis Gift Basket is owned by Jesse James, who says he is rolling out a new logo this week. Along with the new logo are new products for baskets ($55-$100) that focus on diversity by including more women- and minority-owned businesses, in addition to local items with iconic names like The Rendezvous and Memphis magazine. Guess what else you might find in a Memphis Gift Basket? Thistle & Bee honey.

Now that we’ve come full circle, check out these gift box and basket businesses, as well as partnering companies, for errbody on your holiday list — including that corporate gift list.

Visit thistleandbee.org, citytastingbox.com (use code SHIP100 for free shipping on orders over $100), and memphisgiftbasket.com for more. — Julie Ray

Lights, Camera, Action

A lot of businesses have been hard-hit during the pandemic, and movie theaters have been near the top of the list. With social distancing-limited theater capacity and Hollywood studios delaying major releases into next year in the hopes a vaccine will rekindle attendance, theater chains like Memphis-based Malco have been in dire straits. The exception has been drive-in theaters, like the Malco Summer Drive-In, which have seen a renaissance in 2020.

If you want to support this local institution and give a treat to the movie-lover in your life, you can buy them a Malco gift card. Available in any denomination from $10 to $500, the gift cards can be used for movie tickets and concessions for any film now or in the future. You can also enroll in the Malco Marquee Rewards program, which allows frequent moviegoers to earn points toward free tickets and concessions.

Greg Cravens

Malco has taken extraordinary steps to ensure the safety of its patrons, including mandatory masks, improved air filters, and non-contact payment options. And if you’re not comfortable sharing a theater with strangers right now, there’s a great option: The Malco Select program allows you to rent an entire theater for a screening of any film on the marquee — and that includes screenings in the massive IMAX theaters at the Paradiso. Prices start at $100, which works out pretty well if you want to watch Wonder Woman 1984 with your pod this holiday season. And if the person you’re buying for is a gamer, Malco has a brand-new option. With Malco Select Gaming, you can bring your system to the theater and play Call of Duty or The Last of Us on the biggest possible screen. — Chris McCoy

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Novel Hosts Virtual Book Club

Novel hosts the second virtual edition of its monthly A Novel Book Club this Wednesday, April 15th, to get together (on Zoom) and discuss John Le Carré’s 1963 novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, about a British agent being sent to East Germany as a “faux defector” to trap a powerful East German intelligence officer.

Last month, the book club group met on Zoom for the first time. Kat Leache, a social media marketing employee for Novel who also serves as the monthly book club’s leader, was happy with the turnout. “It was really fun,” she says. “It was in that first week of everyone realizing that life was not going to be normal for a while. And so it was kind of an on-the-fly effort.”

The book they discussed was Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, which centers around a devastating flu pandemic that swept up civilization as we know it.

“The selection was chosen in January,” says Leache. “When I chose that in January for the March meeting, I didn’t know that coronavirus would be the thing that it is. So that made it an interesting meeting on a couple of levels, not only because we’re virtual, but because of the contents of the book.

“The reason I chose Station Eleven was because I selfishly wanted to force myself to reread it because it’s one of my favorites and because that author had a book coming out the week after our meeting. It was all so strangely coincidental.” 

For more information on joining Novel’s book club discussions, visit novelmemphis.com or follow them on social media. This month’s club meets on Zoom on Wednesday, April 15th, 7-8:15 p.m., free. Book club members can get 10 percent off the price of this month’s book, and Novel can ship it to you or you can pick it up curbside.

Categories
We Recommend We Recommend

Lit & Libations: The Gone Dead

CREDIT: Andrew Hamilton

Stories grow with the telling, twisting as they mature to enhance the truth or to obfuscate it. “That’s what history is, right? Just a compilation of stories,” says Chanelle Benz, setting up the importance of history, memory, and justice deferred in her new novel The Gone Dead. The novel is set nearby, in the Mississippi Delta, and deals with old wounds long-neglected and unable to heal.

Andrew Hamilton

Chanelle Benz

Benz will discuss her new novel about race, justice, and memory with fellow Rhodes College professor Marshall Boswell as part of the Lit & Libations series at Novel bookstore on Tuesday, June 25th.

“I got interested in the things that we think that we remember and whatever that truth might be and the space between the two,” Benz says. “Our memories are reconfigured based on the story that we’re telling ourselves about ourselves, our own mythology.” As the novel opens, 34-year-old Billie James confronts her own mythology when she moves back to the Delta after she inherits her long-dead father’s house, only to find that the circumstances around his death may not have been what she’s always been told.

While dangerous, though the lie is so much simpler, Billie is compelled to search for the truth. “I think it’s very important the story gets told,” Benz says. “It’s important we unearth these histories [that] complicate our national history.

“There are parallels with our present political and cultural moment,” Benz says. “If there’s not a reckoning, there can’t be a reconciliation. There can’t be any sort of real healing.”

Lit & Libations: Chanelle Benz discusses and signs her novel The Gone Dead in conversation with Marshall Boswell at Novel, Tuesday, June 25th, 6 p.m.

Categories
Book Features Books

Mary Laura Philpott at Novel

Mary Laura Philpott is a workaholic. That becomes abundantly clear as she reels off her long list of jobs. She’s an author, an editor, essayist, and she’s just published a new collection of essays, I Miss You When I Blink [Atria Books]. Philpott is making a stop in Memphis this Wednesday, April 17th, at Novel’s Lit and Libations event series to promote her new collection. Between book tour stops, she found a relatively quiet corner in the Atlanta airport to chat with me over the phone about her new book, penguins, and the joy of quitting.

Memphis Flyer: So, tell me about the new book.

Mary Laura Philpott: We’re calling it a memoir in essays. It’s an essay collection, but it reads like a memoir. It has that narrative arc to it.

And it’s your debut as a memoirist?

Yeah, we’re calling it a debut memoir even though I have another book. My last book, which was a book of cartoons, was totally different.
 


The Penguins with People Problems, right?

That’s right. I’ve actually gotten messages from people asking, “Are you the same person? Is that right?”

Okay, but let’s talk more about I Miss You When I Blink.

It started as a challenge to myself … about three or four years ago, I said to myself, “I wonder if I can make a collection of essays into a book and sell it.”

It’s come a long way from a challenge to yourself.

The scenes that come up again and again and again in these stories I’m telling — and some are from childhood, a lot are from early adulthood, and a lot are from this sort of midlife stage I’m in now — but the themes that come up again and again are reinvention, all the times I thought I knew who I was or what I was doing and then hit a wall and had to back up and take a turn and do things differently. And giving myself permission to change, which is a hard thing to do if you are a type-A person. Because you want to get things right, and you want to hang onto things until you perfect them. But sometimes the better choice is to let things go.

So, the theme was something that emerged, not something you outlined at the beginning?

Exactly I tried to do the thing where you outline a proposal, and you sell it, and they give you a pile of money and you just sit back and write the book. Did not work. I’ve learned about myself that I don’t really know what I’m writing until I’ve written it. I can’t even outline a single essay for you, because I generally don’t know what I think about something until I’ve written it. It was definitely a book that surprised me.

Do you find that writing helps you solidify or discover how you feel about things?

Totally. Joan Didion said, ‘I don’t know what I think until I write it down,’ and I’m very much the same way. … Even on a more micro level, there are essays that surprised me in the book. There’s one called “Wonder Woman,” and it is the essay that I meant to sit down and wrestle with, “Why am I such a perfectionist? Well, it’s probably my mom’s fault.” And as I wrote it, I couldn’t blame my mother. It wasn’t that I was being protective; it was that the more I took myself back in time to be a child, the more I was identifying with my mom then, as a parent myself, now.

I think there’s a flexibility you have to have. It’s wonderful to have an idea, but if you don’t allow the process to mold it in some way, you might miss something.

Totally. Well, as a reader, you can tell when you read an essay or a memoir, or even in fiction, you can tell when you read something and someone has just forced the thing they sat down to do, even when that was no longer the right thing to do with that piece. “I’m going to make this thing I set out to make.” You have to give your mind that flexibility and the project that flexibility to see where it goes.

So, this is the debut collection, you’ve published other essays elsewhere, and then there are the Penguins. And you’re the editor of MUSING as well. You really stay busy.

And I have a TV show on National Public Television. I have too many jobs. I’m a workaholic.

So tell me about the TV show.

It’s called A Word on Words. It airs on National Public Television, and you can also watch it online. It’s a reinvention of a show that aired for 40 years that was hosted by John Seigenthaler. When he passed away, NPT briefly decided to stop the show. … After a few years went by, they decided to reinvent it. … We make these mini shows, and they’re just interviews. And I have a co-host. J.T. Ellison is my co-host. She tapes half the episodes, and I tape half the episodes.

That sounds exciting. And National Public Television approached you about it?

They approached me, and probably they approached me because of what I was already doing at Parnassus [independent bookstore]. I started the digital magazine [MUSING] at Parnassus, which, in addition to publishing reading lists and staff reviews, relies heavily on author interviews. So, I was already interviewing a lot of authors who were coming to Nashville.

So, you were just a natural fit. And you probably have a reputation, where they thought, “Well, she won’t say no to a job.”

She seems like a workaholic. She already has eight jobs; I bet she’d do a ninth one. In my book, there’s an essay called “The Joy of Quitting,” and it’s about how hard it was for me to accept that sometimes you do have to quit a job, rather than just saying yes and piling them on and piling them on. … That essay explores the feeling that something is not right and how quitting something that does not belong in your life, if you look at it the right way, is also sort of a successful move.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I am a former Memphis resident. There’s an essay in the book about how I moved around constantly as a child. And I was in Memphis from second grade through seventh grade, so I lived a pretty formative chunk of childhood there.

Mary Laura Philpott reads from her new memoir-in-essays I Miss You When I Blink, Wednesday, April 17th, at 6 p.m. at Novel.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

Mulroy to Read from New Book on Election Reform

Author, attorney, and founding father cosplayer, Steve Mulroy

Former Counrty Commissioner and mayoral candidate Steve Mulroy (here rocking a period wig and mugging the camera) is not a Founding Father. He just plays one (James Wilson, by name) in the  Tony-winning musical, 1776, now playing at Theatre Memphis though March 31. Mulroy, whose day job is that of law professor at the University of Memphis, is also the author of Unskewing the System: Rethinking U.S. Election Law, which he will read from and discuss at Novel Bookstore on Tuesday at 6 p.m.

As the title suggests, he book treats any number of proposals — including Instant Runoff Voting — for making the American electoral system fairer and more accessible.

Attendees will have the opportunity to acquire a volume by means of a special author’s discount.

Categories
Book Features Books

Claire Fullerton’s Mourning Dove

One could put together a mighty fine shelf of novels set in Memphis. To name just a few: September, September by Shelby Foote. Good Benito by Alan Lightman. Another Good Lovin’ Blues by Arthur Flowers. The Frozen Rabbi by Steve Stern. Molly Flanagan & the Holy Ghost by Margaret Skinner. A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor. The Springs by Anne Goodwin Winslow.

And now we must add to that august shelf this powerful, polished gem, Mourning Dove, by ex-Memphian Claire Fullerton. Fullerton lived here through the ’60s and ’70s, when most of this novel takes place. Her memory is clear and her prose crystalline. This is Memphis rendered nimbly and passionately, a city that encompasses both the landed gentry and the restless younger generation, which sees through — and travels through — the thin veil of gentility that still sits on the sprawling city like a doily on a magnolia stump.

Claire Fullerton lives in California now. But this is a chronicle penned by a shrewd novelist haunted by her hometown, a city of ghosts and lush memories. At times this family novel reminded me of the grandest family novel, Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children. Fullerton’s delineation of her memorable characters is masterful.

The story is predominantly about a brother and sister, Finley and Millie Crossan, and is told first-person through the soft-filter eyes of Millie. She adulates Finley, who, we are told on the first page, has died early. So, this is not just an examination of the peccadillos and mores of the Southern upper crust. It is also a mystery. What happened to the golden boy, a genius in school, an athlete and musician, and a protean soul if ever there was one?

The Crossans relocate from Minnesota to Memphis, escaping from the children’s father, a well-meaning drunk. “The Memphis Finley and I landed in was my mother’s Memphis. It was magnolia-lined and manicured, black-tailed and bow-tied. It glittered in illusory gold and tinkled in sing-song voices.”

Millie grows up during the course of the novel, searching for her true self, one which has to struggle out from under her veneration of Finley and from under her mother’s genteel velvet glove. “At sixteen,” she says, “I was beginning to wrestle with the gnawing impression of what I interpreted as my mother’s superficial world, and it left me conflicted, for I had yet to arrive at the stable ground of my own identity.”

This is the Memphis of the Memphis Country Club, but it’s also the Memphis of the Well and the burgeoning punk music crowd, which draws Finley into its sphere. The children learn to assimilate in both cultures, though Millie says, “People from the neat grid of Memphis society I’d been raised in didn’t test its perimeters.”

One of Fullerton’s strengths — and there are many — is her Fitzgeraldian gift of observation. She gets all the details right. Here is Millie’s description of an adult party and her exclusion from it. “The Austrian crystal chandelier in the card room twinkled like a spotlight on their haute couture, and their voices carried all the way upstairs, to where Finley and I kept out of the way.” This concision, and its nuanced rendering of emotion, is found throughout this remarkable novel.

Mourning Dove is mainly concerned with Finley and how Millie’s view of him fluctuates, though her love never flags. As she gets older, her exalted brother’s diamond-bright personality begins to reflect sides she was unprepared for. As a friend tells her, “Careful of this guy, he leads a double life.” Though the heart sees what it wants to see, Millie begins to cast a gimlet eye on Finley, as he drifts away from her.

I don’t want to diminish how really fine this novel is by characterizing it only as a Memphis novel, though Memphians would be right to want to claim it and hold it dear. As I read it, page after page, I kept thinking, “Jesus, this is truly extraordinary.” Claire Fullerton is the real deal, and my admiration for this book is comparable to my admiration for Eudora Welty — I think Mourning Dove is that good.

Claire Fullerton signs Mourning Dove at Novel on September 11th.

Categories
News News Feature

Shop Local East

This holiday season, we’re encouraging our readers to support local businesses by shopping right here at home.

Frost Bake Shop

Cookies, cupcakes, pie — oh my! The dessert masters at Frost know how to satisfy a sweet tooth. For a gift or a gathering, pick up a heavenly decadent chocolate silk pie. The creamy smooth filling sits inside a deliciously flaky crust. Topped with lightly sweetened house-made whipped cream and grated chocolate, it’s sure to be a hit ($21). Visit Frost Bake Shop at 394 S. Grove Park or frostbakeshop.com.

Novel.

A good book is a great go-to for the hard-to-buy-for folks in your life. Fans of the long-shuttered Libertyland theme park might enjoy Images of Modern America: Libertyland by John Stevenson. This look at the park’s history — accompanied by a collection of photographs provided by former park employees, guests, and historians — will take your giftee on a roller coaster ride down memory lane. Visit Novel. at 387 Perkins Extended or novelmemphis.com.

Dinstuhl’s

Sour, salty, sweet, or decadent — whatever your craving, Dinstuhl’s homemade candies are the cure. Since 1902, the candy-makers at this Memphis institution have produced local favorites, such as their legendary Cashew Crunch toffee topped with flecks of coconut ($10.95/8 oz., $19.95/lb.). To purchase this or other delightful offerings, stop by one of three convenient locations (436 Grove Park, 7730 Poplar Avenue #3 in Germantown, or 5280 Pleasant View) or visit dinstuhls.com.