Within the first ten pages of Audrey Ingram’s debut novel, The River Runs South, I cried. It was not a single tear that I shed; it was the kind of cry that made me draw a blanket toward my face in hopes it might catch all the tears I couldn’t seem to control. I knew Camille Taylor’s husband, Ben, was going to die. But I was not prepared for the ways in which Ingram let Camille’s grief unfold on the page. And while those first ten pages wrecked me, The River Runs South is about more than Camille’s journey through grief. Ingram’s novel seamlessly blends together a story where a ho ..read more

The Dirty South is a lot at once. On its face, it’s an interrogation of the fantasized portrayals of the South through media produced in the period between 1970 and 2020. But more substantially, The Dirty South is a corrective book of Southern Studies. It’s an exploration of what portrayals of the South say about both what we feel and attempt not to feel about that place and an attempt to differentiate the parts of those portrayals that are valuable and those that are harmful. The author, James A. Crank, a professor of American literature and culture, explicitly identifies his intentions of of ..read more

Bryan Washington’s newest novel, Family Meal, begins with an accidental reunion. Cam, having just moved back to Houston and now working at a gay bar, sees his childhood friend TJ drinking water at one of the tables late into the evening. Cam is looking at TJ drinking his water, and suddenly, TJ looks right at him. It isn’t a joyful moment. It’s fraught and tense. It feels like they haven’t seen each other in a long time because of many unspoken things. Cam and TJ’s reunion jumpstarts a novel about the relationships that last through thick and thin. With its stark, striking prose and dry humor ..read more

“Today is the day I am going to die.” That’s how Maya Golden’s memoir opens, and while we know she lives to write The Return Trip, how could we not want to see how?  The book is a raw and honest account of the author’s sexual abuse, her subsequent struggles with perfectionism and addiction, and her attempts to heal.  Golden, the founder and executive director of the 1 in 3 Foundation, a nonprofit that helps women overcome similar experiences, also illustrates — whether intentionally or not — the mixed messages girls receive about sex, love, and being themselves. Rendering with ease w ..read more

With the Fall season upon us, coffee or tea and cozy reads are all the rage. If you’re looking to curl up with a blanket and dive into a book that fits the season but doesn’t stir panic and cause you to toss your book into the freezer (à la Joey Tribbiani on “Friends”), Starling House by Alix E. Harrow is just what you’re looking for. In Eden, Kentucky, a small coal town with more mysteries than there are citizens, a looming structure calls to the broody, sardonic, and painfully stubborn protagonist, Opal. That structure is Starling House, whose gates are as unnerving as the house itself. The ..read more

November is always a shock to me; I look up and panic about how cold it’s getting and where the year went. It’s a rough adjustment into winter — the world is dark, the days are short, and life is really hard. Books are a comfort in this time, so I hope you’re cozy, wherever you are, and curled up with a new book. Gullies of My People By John Lane November 1, 2023 UGA Press: “While scouting sites for geology field trips, poet and naturalist John Lane encountered deep gullies created between the Civil War and the 1930s contributed to by his mother’s tenant farming family and their rural neighbo ..read more

Curtis Blackledge, proprietor of the newly established Sunshine Alligator Farm in Arcadia, Florida, an hour’s drive north of Fort Myers, was a friendly sort. Eager to learn how to raise gators, he sought others in the business, peppering them with questions, swapping tall tales over a few cold ones and tagging along on expeditions into the swamps to harvest eggs. It was not long before one of Blackledge’s contacts leased him a modest farm, which he transformed into a state-of-the-art facility for hatching alligators and exporting them to Louisiana to be butchered for meat and hides. Along the ..read more

In Nuha Fariha’s God Mornings, Tiger Nights, a keen and observant speaker narrates a love letter to immigration. At the same time, the speaker also addresses international and national issues such as gender norms, Islamophobia, unnerving xenophobia, and personal and cultural isolation in an increasingly dangerous America. The speaker’s astute, brave self-awareness centers the collection, and their direct, bold voice echoes in each poem. In “A Brief Travel Advisory,” the speaker initially focuses on travel restrictions, specifically luggage requirements, for travelers. The speaker uses technica ..read more

The eclectic collection House Gone Quiet: Stories, by Kelsey Norris, offers ten stories distinct in genre, tone, and voice. Ranging from social commentary ripe with sardonic wit to the dreamy surrealism of bioluminescent algae, Norris’s stories are indeed individually contained and yet connected, each pointing its unique lens toward ideas of community and belonging. The shortest story in the collection, “Decency Rule,” is a satire about the absurdity that abounds when critical thinking gives way to cult-like worship of politicians. Without warning or reason, the mayor of a town declares that n ..read more

David Lawrence Morse takes readers on a fantastic – and fantastical – journey in his debut short story collection, The Book of Disbelieving. The book wastes no time in presenting itself as a thoughtful, magical collection of short fiction. “The Great Fish,” the opening story, follows a whale named Ceta, and the villagers who travel aboard her back, collecting drinking water from her blowhole and eating fish lice from her skin. The villagers exist happily enough in a state of blissful ignorance, but the insistence of the possibility of an outside world – one of land and birds and stil ..read more