Southern Review of Books

11/01/2024

"Like a great artist, Herrera found a story within a larger work and made its color shine so that the whole of the masterpiece – in this case, New Orleans – draws us in deeper."

New review of SEASON OF THE SWAMP by Yuri Herrera, translated by Lisa Dillman. Graywolf Press

The persona of Benito Juárez, revolutionary and first president of Mexico, transports readers to pre-Civil War New Orleans in this tale of bear fights, murders, infatuation, and yellow fever.

10/31/2024

"At times funny and familiar, and at others raw and complicated, the novel straddles past and present to illuminate q***r friendships and the challenges and reliefs that come with grappling with gender identity."

New review of STILL LIFE by Katherine Packert Burke. W. W. Norton & Company

Katherine Packert Burke’s debut novel, “Still Life,” straddles the past and present as it illuminates q***r relationships, the challenges and reliefs of grappling with gender iden…

10/28/2024

"Riveting, haunting, and gorgeous, The Bog Wife is a novel about the cycles of life and breaking tradition."

New review of THE BOG WIFE by Kay Chronister. Counterpoint Press

Riveting, haunting, and gorgeous, Kay Chronister’s “The Bog Wife” is a novel about the cycles of life and breaking tradition.

10/25/2024

"The pink push button phone with the receiver off the hook on the cover of Jami Attenberg’s latest novel perfectly encapsulates the frustrations and missed connections throughout the story that accompany the family communication."

New review of A REASON TO SEE YOU AGAIN by Jami Attenberg. Ecco Books

Jami Attenberg’s latest novel explores how Cohen family members seek to improve themselves against the backdrop of the 70s, 80s and 90s America.

10/23/2024

"I began to think about my own consumption of stories with parallel universes, alternate timelines, time travel, and what-ifs. Tropes or not, some of my favorite stories have these fantastical or science fiction elements."

SRB Editor Amy Martin rounds up some of her favorite multiverse books and TV.

SRB editor Amy Martin rounds up some of her favorite books, movies, and tv shows featuring multiverses.

10/21/2024

"I wanted to make sure that if I was gonna call the book Thickets Swamped In Fence-Coated Briars, the form was gonna mirror exactly what I was talking about. [Pointing around the park] Some of it is manmade, right? But some of the stuff is completely natural. In the book, some of the sh*t’s manmade and impenetrable – things we feel like we don’t have any control over. Work or money feels like that to me, or even death, you know."

Check out this fantastic conversation between Ashleigh Bryant Phillips and Evan Gray on his recent collection, THICKETS SWAMPED IN FENCE-COATED BRIARS. Garden-Door Press

(Garden-Door Press is donating proceeds from the sale of this book to support , a western North Carolina–based organization providing relief and establishing mutual aid hubs in the wake of Hurricane Helene, so consider grabbing a copy, or just donating to help our Appalachian neighbors recover and rebuild!)

An interview with Evan Gray about his first book, “Thickets Swamped in Fence-Coated Briars.”

10/18/2024

October is ideal porch-sitting-with-a-book-weather! Check out these new releases.

A roundup of new books with Southern connections released this month.

10/14/2024

"The stories collected here cover a vast territory in regards to thematic and structural approach. The whole thing still feels connected, and much of that connection comes from the appreciation of the natural world — the animals and the buzzing of life (and silence of death)."

New review of LITTLE ONES by Grey Wolfe LaJoie.

Grey Wolfe LaJoie’s debut story collection, “Little Ones,” mixes fairy tales, fables, and the bizarre for one wholly original and quite dazzling book.

10/11/2024

"Told over the course of one evening, Graveyard Shift is striking in its mismatched cast of characters and sharp, foreboding narrative voice."

New review of GRAVEYARD SHIFT by M.L. Rio.

A review of M.L. Rio’s sophomore novella, “Graveyard Shift.”

10/10/2024

"This book is a love song to that older dialect that my grandparents had. It's so rich and beautiful, but it’s almost characterized in movies as a sign of ignorance. If you listen to the ways they string words together, it’s poetry."

Catherine Campbell interviews Andrew K. Clark on WHERE DARK THINGS GROW.

https://southernreviewofbooks.com/2024/10/10/where-dark-things-grow-andrew-clark-interview/

Our hearts are with our beloved Appalachian neighbors dealing with the aftermath of the hurricane. Both Catherine and Andrew are writers with ties to Western North Carolina and are on the ground helping with relief and rebuilding, so we wanted to share some resources for supporting their communities. One of the defining characteristics of Appalachians is the way we show up for each other, and we hope you'll be a part of that.

BeLoved Asheville
https://www.instagram.com/_roar_wnc/ — concentrating on Marshall and surrounding area
Equal Plates Project — based in Asheville, pays farms to make meals for the community
https://www.poderemma.org/home — serves the Latinx community
Southside Community Garden

10/08/2024

"Like me, Stuber is less interested in wallowing in sorrow than in exploring what sorrow says about life. Life as 'a short sentence with a visible period.' Life as 'things slipping further and further out of your grasp' or, alternatively, as 'things racing closer toward you in an imminent-car-crash way.' Life as a 'series of knitted-together indecencies.'"

New review of SAD GROWNUPS by Amy Stuber. Stillhouse Press

Amy Stuber’s binge-worthy story collection is a perceptive, inventive, surprising, and deeply humane debut.

10/04/2024

"Without Her ends on a note of conclusion and continuation. It is both an answer and a question that lingers perpetually, as well as an acknowledgment of grief and frustration of human limitations."

New review of WITHOUT HER by Rebecca Spiegel. Milkweed Editions

A review of Rebecca Spiegel’s new book “Without Her: A Chronicle of Grief and Love.”

10/02/2024

"The poems are brief and breezy but not trite; they are accessible, versatile, and capable of spreading serious joy. Generous is a descriptor that comes to mind. 'Success is a pie with unlimited pieces,' she reminds us in 'Good for Her.'"

New review of A BIT MUCH by Lyndsay Rush. St. Martin's Press

A review of poet Lyndsay Rush’s collection, “A Bit Much.”

10/01/2024

"Gary Carden welcomingly invites everyone into his lifetime spent in Appalachia, without pretense and free of sugarcoating. Stories I Lived to Tell, a memoir arranged almost like a short story collection, is told in bite-size anecdotes that come one after another, like someone riffing and reminiscing on tales from their past while weaving in their thoughts in the present."

New review of STORIES I LIVED TO TELL by Gary Carden. University of North Carolina Press

Generally short in length, the tales primarily comprise pivotal or fond moments from Carden’s boyhood, memories of his family members, and reflections — piecing together what was, what …

09/27/2024

"Instead of attributing the rise and fall of nations to court struggles or moral failure, I examine how history influences ordinary lives and how individual experiences can shed light on how we evaluate the political and the historical. I often ask myself: In what ways do personal and family stories mirror the rise and fall of nations?"

Awesome new interview with Weijia Pan on MOTHERLANDS! Milkweed Editions

An interview with poet Weijia Pan about his collection “Motherlands,” which uses poetic inquiry to explore the tensions within family relationships in post-Maoist China.

09/26/2024

Another month, another roundup of fantastic new Southern releases.

A roundup of some of the best new Southern releases of September 2024.

09/25/2024

"Old Wounds is often cognizant of its own purpose: exploring a typical beast-in-the-woods story through the perspectives of trans teens. Ultimately, it comes triumphantly upon a message of hope for trans teens as Erin and Max navigate their way through the blood-spattered night."

New review of OLD WOUNDS by Logan-Ashley Kisner.

“Old Wounds” by Logan-Ashley Kisner mixes horror, heart, and old ghosts.

09/23/2024

"Readers should be forewarned that THE STONE CATCHERS is an emotionally heavy read from its first page until its last. Because of this, the novel’s structure actually benefits the overall reading experience. The individual narratives are, for the most part, brief. Morris’s detailed writing, in which each word matters and carries narrative significance, works with this structural compression to create the various individual and communal tumults."

New review of Laura Leigh Morris' THE STONE CATCHERS. University Press of Kentucky

A review of Laura Leigh Morris’s novel, “The Stone Catchers.”

09/21/2024

"The importance of mothers’ stories cannot be overstated. We need more of them. In the essay 'On the Silence of Regret,' Case asks, 'Why are we so afraid to know what mothers think of their children? Is it because such stories would remove a veil about motherhood that we as a culture are not ready to confront'? The author excerpts a passage from Rebecca Solnit’s The Mother of All Questions and concludes: 'Regret needs to become part of the story.'"

New review of Jennifer Case's WE ARE ANIMALS. Trinity University Press

A review of Jennifer Case’s “We Are Animals,” a collection of 15 honest and deeply considered essays.

09/17/2024

"To me, writing a novel feels like baking a many, many-layered cake."

New interview with Tessa Fontaine on THE RED GROVE, publishing in general, and the Punch Bucket Literary Festival in Asheville this weekend! Farrar, Straus and Giroux

An interview with Tessa Fontaine on her latest novel, “The Red Grove,” and the Punch Bucket Literary Festival in Asheville, NC.

09/16/2024

"From farming to fishing to industry and beyond. I worked for almost ten years with the Head Start program, and, every year, my caseload was filled with clients who had so very little but made the most of it and called it a decent living. At any point in time, sickness, an injury, an act of God, etc. could have significantly changed their lives and livelihoods, so I think the lines from the poem really speak to that fragile relationship Southerners have with possession and possessions."

New interview with Christian Collier on his brand new collection, GREATER GHOST, out from Four Way Books!

An interview with poet Christian J. Collier on his full-length poetry collection, “Greater Ghost.”

09/13/2024

"The South in ALTARS is, of course, the South as I’ve experienced it... I wanted to showcase the speaker wrestling with what he’s taught to be and how he’s taught to act as a child of the Gulf Coast and how he carries that through familial loss, through joy, and through loving a partner away from the Coast."

Poets Nicholas Molbert and William Fargason in conversation about their recent collections, the South, and frustration with form.

A conversation between poets Nicholas Tolbert, author of “Altars of Spine and Fraction,” and William Fargason, author of “Velvet.”

09/12/2024

Do you love contemporary Southern literature and celebrating books of all kinds? The SRB might be the perfect place for you! We're looking for two daily editors and a social media manager to add to our all-volunteer team.

More information: https://southernreviewofbooks.com/2024/09/12/the-srb-is-searching-for-new-editors-2/

09/11/2024

"It’s compelling, a charmer of a novel, crafted with plain prose that only occasionally veers into the obvious and overly lyrical. The simplicity of Booy’s style is, I think, what gives this slender novel its power. It allows space for Booy’s meditations on grace, but doesn’t pretend to be more than an uplifting tale with a few simple life lessons tucked inside."

New review of SIPSWORTH by Simon van Booy. Godine

A charming, uplifting novel featuring a grief-stricken widow befriended by a mouse that even cute-averse readers cannot resist.

09/09/2024

"I did not think of myself as an artist or capable of making art. I think I got NI (Needs Improvement) on every grade school report card in art. I felt I had made a choice to go through the door marked 'Words' not the one marked 'Art.'"

New interview with Jesse Lee Kercheval on FRENCH GIRL.

An interview with the poet, writer, translator and visual artist Jesse Lee Kercheval on the narrative illustrations in her graphic memoir.