WYPL Book Talk

Hillary Jordan - When She Woke

Hillary Jordan comes back to the program to talk about her new novel When She Woke. In a near, dystopian future, Hannah Payne awakes and finds her skin colored red for a committing a crime, which today would be perfectly legal. It's a bit of a riff on The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne that also investigates how our information technology could conspire to deprive us of our basic freedoms.

George Pelecanos - The Double

 

 George Pelecanos is known for his high quality work as a novelist, as well as for writing on some of the most respected television shows around like The Wire and Treme. He's written over 20 novels including the Nick Stefanos series, The Night Gardener, The D.C. Quartet, and 2011 brought us The Cut, the first novel in the Spero Lucas series. Little, Brown has recently released the second book, The Double.

William B. Jones - Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History

 

Stephen Usery interviews William B. Jones, Jr. about his new book, Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History. More than just a beautiful coffee table book, Jones traces the history of Classics Illustrated from their pre-World War II beginnings through through peak of popularity in the 1950s, until their end in the 1960s, and subsequent attempts to revive bringing the great books to young and older readers alike in comic book form.

John Jeremiah Sullivan - Pulphead

Stephen Usery interviews John Jeremiah Sullivan about his collection of essays entitled Pulphead. Sullivan has won two National Magazine Awards and has written for publications like The Oxford American, GQ, and The Paris Review. Time Magazine recently called him the new Tom Wolfe and his book was Just named to the 100 notable books of the year list by the New York Times.

Donna Johnson - Holy Ghost Girl

Stephen Usery interviews Donna Johnson about her memoir, Holy Ghost Girl. It recounts her childhood as the daughter of the organ player and mistress of the successful tent revival preacher and end-time prophet Brother David Terrell. It's a fascinating look at the people behind the pulpit and how adulation and power corrupt even the most devout.

Justin Torres - We the Animals

Stephen Usery interviews Justin Torres about his critically-acclaimed debut novel, We The Animals. It's the story of a very young family with three boys in Upstate New York stuggling with identity on all fronts in addition to economic hardship. Concentrated, unflinching, and impressionistic, We The Animals is one of the most talked about debuts of the year.

 

Marissa de los Santos - Falling Together

 

Stephen Usery interview Marisa de los Santos about her third novel, Falling Together. It's the story of three friends who were inseperable in college, but several years after graduation the friendship disintegrates, and as their ten-year reunion approaches, they must come to grips with this and other losses.

 

Robert Morgan - Lions of the West

Stephen Usery interviews acclaimed novelist and poet Robert Morgan. Best known for his novel Gap Creek, Morgan has been branching out into biography recently, and his new book Lions of the West takes a look at ten men who played huge roles in America's expansion from the original thirteen colonies all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Diana Abu-Jaber - Birds of Paradise

Stephen Usery interviews Diana Abu Jaber about her new novel, Birds of Paradise. Set in southern Florida in 2005, a family struggles with after effects of a runaway daughter who stays in just enough touch to keep the wounds open as her mother, father, and brother all try to move forward in their lives.

Kami Garcia - Beautiful Chaos

Stephen Usery interviews Kami Garcia, co-author of the Caster Chronicles series about the third installment, Beautiful Chaos. Human high-schooler Ethan Wate and his magical girlfriend Lena Duchannes fight against the ancient evil in her family that threatens to not only ruin the school year, but could also bring about the end of the world.

Mark Greaney - Ballistic

In Ballistic,the third installment of Mark Greaney's The Gray Man series, Court Gentry finds his way to Mexico and gets mixed up with narcotraficantes. We also talk about a possible film version of The Gray Man and his recent collaboration with Tom Clancy.

Eoin Colfer - Plugged

 

Eoin Colfer, the man behind the Artemis Fowl juggernaut, has decided to get into the adult crime fiction game, as well. In Plugged, Daniel McEvoy is an Irish ex-millitary expat living in New Jersey. Working as a bouncer at the crummiest casino in town, he gives the bum's rush to a lawyer who doesn't respect the law. Hijinks, hilarity, and bloodshed ensue.

 

R.J. Ellory - A Simple Act of Violence

Stephen Usery interviews R.J. Ellory about his Theakston prize-winning novel, A Simple Act of Violence. Washington D.C. homicide detective Robert Miller is hunting a serial killer whose secrets could shake the foundation of the nation. They also talk about RJ's blues rock band, The Whiskey Poets.

Lisa Patton - Yankee Doodle Dixie

Stephen Usery interviews former Memphian Lisa Patton about her second novel Yankee Doodle Dixie. A sequel to Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'Easter, Yankee Doodle Dixie finds Leelee Satterfield back in Memphis and having trouble readjusting to home after having run an inn in Vermont for over a year. A new job in radio makes things more interesting than Leelee could have ever imagined.

Rober Olen Butler - A Small Hotel

Stephen Usery interviews Pulitzer-Prize winner Robert Olen Butler about his new novel, A Small Hotel. It's the story of the end of a marriage between Michael and Kelly Hays, but travels back in time to their first meeting, their childhoods, and other points along their histories that let us know how their marriage came to be so troubled.

Jesmyn Ward - Salvage the Bones

Stephen Usery interviews Jesmyn Ward about her second novel, Salvage the Bones. It's August of 2005, and as the hurricane season begins heating up, a Mississippi Gulf Coast teenage girl named Esch tries to get by from day to day, as her brother raises pit bulls for fighting, her father obsesses about the coming storms, and the world at large seems to have little to no sympathy for the rural poor. 

Clyde Edgerton - The Night Train

Stephen Usery interviews Clyde Edgerton about his new novel, The Night Train. It's 1963 in a small North Carolina town where two teenagers, one black, one white, strike up a small friendship over music. One wants to become a jazz pianist in order to leave the segregrated south, and the other wants to lead his white bandmates in learning James Brown's Live at the Apollo note for note.

Preston Lauterbach - The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock 'n' Roll

Stephen Usery interviews Memphian Preston Lauterbach about his first book, The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock 'n' Roll. The Chitlin' Circuit doesn't just look at the evolution of African-American musical styles in the mid-twentieth century, but it also looks at the money men behind the business of show and all the hurdles they had to overcome to ensure some good rockin' tonight.

 

 

Jenny Wingfield - The Homecoming of Samuel Lake

Stephen Usery interviews Jenny Wingfield about her debut novel, The Homecoming of Samuel Lake. Set in South Arkansas in the mid-1950s, Samuel Lake is a Methodist minister without a church who moves his wife and kids into his in-laws' home, which features a general store up front and an illegal bar out back, and his daughter becomes friends with a neighbor which puts the entire family at risk.

Adam Ross - Ladies and Gentlemen

Stephen Usery interviews Adam Ross about his short story collection Ladies and Gentlemen. Coming on the heels of his critically-acclaimed first novel, Mr. Peanut, Ross continues his investigations into the choices we make every day, especially the ones which lead us to hurting others and ultimately, ourselves.