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Chapter 16 is a digital language & literature program of Humanities Tennessee

President:
Robert Cheatham

Director of Literature & Language Programs:
Serenity Gerbman

Director of Digital Programs:
Tim Henderson


Editor:
Margaret Renkl

Contributing Writers: Ralph Bowden, Maria Browning, Wayne Christeson, Susannah Felts, Lacey Galbraith, Liz Garrigan, Paul V. Griffith, Faye Jones, Sean Kinch, Paul McCoy, Fernanda Moore, Joe Nolan, Charlotte Pence, Anne Delana Reeves, Clay Risen, Chris Scott, Ed Tarkington, Michael Ray Taylor

Copyeditor:
Wayne Christeson

Calendar Editor:
Tristan Hickey

Editorial Board: Darnell Arnoult, Amy Dietrich, Tony Earley, John Egerton, Sylverna Ford, Silas House, Mary Grey James, Marilyn Kallet, Michael Knight, Catherine Landis, Randy Mackin, Jane Pinkston, Alice Randall, Fred Sauceman, Phyllis Tickle, Stephen Usery

Sponsored in part by:

A Radical Act of Love

When his grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, memoirist Robert Leleux unexpectedly found his chance to have, at last, a happy family

by Margaret Renkl

January 27, 2012 The Living End: A Memoir of Forgetting and Forgiving is the story of the way Robert Leleux navigates the labyrinth of hospitals and specialists he is cast into when his beloved grandmother is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. To anyone unfamiliar with Leleux’s sense of humor and unerring ability to locate and memorialize absurdity in all its guises, this will no doubt sound like a dreary tale best avoided until life offers no way around it. In fact it is an absolute pleasure to read this gentle, funny, deeply wise memoir of how an encounter with incurable illness turns a boy into a man, and angry people into a family again. Leleux answered questions from Chapter 16 via email prior to his appearance at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 30 at 6 p.m.

Published Friday, 27 January 2012

Beginning with a Voice

It’s been a long road to publication for Thomas P. Balázs, but his new story collection is well worth the wait

by Susannah Felts

January 26, 2012 Despite the science-fiction origin of its title, the nine stories in Thomas P. Balázs’s debut collection, Omicron Ceti III, offer journeys into dark and quite disparate corners of this very real world. Wide-ranging in subject, the stories are linked by their characters’ fumbling, consuming desire for connection, and by the comic qualities that Balázs deftly draws out of their lonely and sometimes painful circumstances. Balázs will read from Omicron Ceti III in Chattanooga on January 29, 3 p.m., at Winder Binder Books, and on February 20, 7 p.m., at the Jewish Community Federation.

Published Thursday, 26 January 2012

Family Drama and Unfinished Romance

Kim Edwards, author of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, talks with Chapter 16 about her new book, The Lake of Dreams

by Sarah Norris

January 25, 2012 Kim Edwards’s debut novel, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, sold more than four million copies in the United States alone and spent 122 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. Edwards answered questions from Chapter 16 prior to her appearance at “Literacy is Key: A Book & Author Affair” on January 26 at 10 a.m. at the University of Memphis. The program will also feature remarks by Lisa Patton, author of Yankee Doodle Dixie, and Ace Atkins, author of The Ranger, and proceeds will support both Literacy Mid-South and Reading is Fundamental. For information and tickets, please click here.

Published Wednesday, 25 January 2012

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Briefly Noted

Bean Blossom: The Brown County Jamboree and Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Festivals
Thomas Adler
University of Illinois Press
288 pages
$24.95

"Bean Blossom seems to be the ideal subject for an extended historical study such as this. Loaded with facts and details, the unfolding story is so interesting and engrossing. I read it with delighted recognition and remembrance."

--John Wright, author of Traveling the High Way Home: Ralph Stanley and the World of Traditional Bluegrass Music