This week, Jill McCorkle discusses her latest novel; Hieroglyphics, which reveals the difficulty of ever really knowing the intentions, dreams, and secrets of the people who raised you. In her deeply layered novel, McCorkle deconstructs and reconstructs what it means to be a father or a mother, and what it means to be a child piecing together the world around us. (more…)
This week, Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses his new novel, “The Committed.” The book is the long-awaited follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Sympathizer.” It tells the story of a communist double agent and his blood brother, Bon, as they try to overcome their pasts and ensure their futures. (more…) ...
In Gish Jen’s latest “The Resisters,” we meet Gwen who has a Golden Arm and finds herself happily playing in an underground baseball league in her teens. It is also the story of one family struggling to maintain its humanity and normalcy in circumstances that threaten their every value as well as their very existence. ...
This week, we speak with the creator of the Son of Baldwin online community, Robert Jones, Jr. He discusses his debut novel The Prophets, which showcases the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation; the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence. (more…) ...
