Book Reviews

There Is Happiness: New and Selected Stories By Brad Watson W.W. Norton & Company, 2024 Hardcover: $29.99; eBook: $20.99 Genre: Short Stories Reviewed by Edward Journey The astonishing fiction of Brad Watson is available in a new collection, There Is Happiness: New and Selected Stories. For readers familiar with Watson’s work, the collection includes eight favorite stories published in two previous short story collections – Last Days of the Dog-Men (1996) and Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives (2010) – [...]

Africatown: America’s Last Slave Ship and the Community it Created By Nick Tabor St. Martin’s Press, 2023 Cloth, $29.99 African American History/Alabama Reviewed by Scotty E. Kirkland  Writer and critic Hilton Als tells us that when you read a writer’s work in a popular magazine, you are really seeing two writers. “There’s the person who has something to say, and the person who has to make that something fit.” In 2018, journalist Nick Tabor began working on a New York Magazine [...]

Bound to Dream: An Immigrant Story and The Magic Box: A Book of Opposites  By Charles Ghigna   Schiffer Publishing   Hardback: $18.99 and $14.99  Genre: Children’s  Reviewed by Barbara Barcellona Smith   My great pleasure in reviewing author Charles Ghigna’s two newest books comes from a mutual respect and admiration for our shared cultural histories. Charles’ great-grandfather and my own father both immigrated to America from Italy. Their stories of hardship, grit, and determination contributed to the fabric of our own lives and [...]

AWF is pleased to post Books in Brief, a compendium of titles recently received in the office. Full-length reviews will often be forthcoming, but we hope BIB provides a quick peek at new works in time for your next bookstore or library visit. So many good things to share!

Mosquito Warrior: Yellow Fever, Public Health, and the Forgotten Career of General William C. Gorgas By Carol R. Byerly The University of Alabama Press, 2024 Hardcover: $120.00; Paperback: $39.95; eBook: $39.95 Genre: Biography, History Reviewed by Edward Journey Alabama schoolchildren used to learn that Alabamian “William Crawford Gorgas (1854-1920) conquered yellow fever in the Panama Canal Zone” while students at the University of Alabama studied at the Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library, named after William’s mother, and regularly passed the Gorgas House [...]

Meet Me in Mumbai: A Memoir  By Lovelace Cook  Whisperwood Publishing, 2023  Paper: $19.99  Memoir  Reviewed by Lenore Vickrey  I’ve long had a desire to drop everything and travel to some remote part of the world to taste new foods, breathe the air, meet the native people, and immerse myself in a foreign culture. Not an extended trip, mind you, but enough to get a feel for another part of the planet that I could document with photos and create new [...]

The Founding of Alabama: Background and Formative Period in the Great Bend and Madison County By Frances Cabaniss Roberts, edited and with an introduction by Thomas Reidy University of Alabama Press, 2020 Paper, $39.95 History/Alabama Reviewed by Scotty E. Kirkland  One of the lasting contributions of Alabama’s multifaceted, three-year celebration of the bicentennial of statehood was the number of fine books it produced. The Founding of Alabama, the long-awaited publication in book form of Dr. Frances Cabaniss Roberts’ dissertation, certainly fits [...]

Running Past Dark  By Han Nolan  McElderry Books, 2023  Hardcover: $19.99  Genre: Young Adult  Reviewed by Lynn Lamere  Han Nolan manages to artfully combine thriller with teenage angst in her book Running Past Dark. The novel centers around a unique genre of running, and Nolan’s novel keeps a running pace with short chapters and engaging dialogue.  The reader is introduced to a troubled protagonist right away. Scotlyn (Scottie) and her sister Caitlyn (Cait) were inseparable as twins often are, and Scottie [...]

Grave History: Death, Race, and Gender in Southern Cemeteries  Edited by Kami Fletcher and Ashley Towle  The University of Georgia Press, 2023  Paper: $32.95  Nonfiction; Academic   Reviewed by Mollie Smith Waters   Grave History: Death, Race, and Gender in Southern Cemeteries is a collection of scholarly essays about various cemeteries throughout the American South. The book focuses on the historical and cultural significance of the selected cemeteries and what they can tell us about how cemeteries helped promote and sustain race, class, [...]

Rich Justice  By Robert Bailey  Thomas & Mercer, 2024  Paperback: $16.99  Genre: Legal Thriller  Reviewed by Edward Journey  Robert Bailey harnesses the mystique and mythology of Alabama’s Sand Mountain region in Rich Justice, Bailey’s tenth novel and the third in his series of Jason Rich legal thrillers. Bailey, a Huntsville attorney, is the bestselling author of the Bocephus Haynes series and the McMurtrie and Drake series, in addition to the Jason Rich books and The Golfer’s Carol, an inspirational novel.   Jason [...]

Between Chance and Mercy  By James E. Cherry   Aquarius Press/Willow Books, 2024  Paper: $17.95  Genre: Poetry  Reviewed by Jeanie Thompson  Between Chance and Mercy, the latest poetry collection from Tennessee poet James E. Cherry, traces racial history and race relations in America, the COVID era, disturbing contemporary events, and personal moments of insight and longing. That’s a big buffet, but each poem is a personal narrative and also a mirror to our own lives. To read Between Chance and Mercy [...]

A Luthier’s Life: The Guitar Odyssey of Roger Fritz By Willie G. Moseley Acclaim Press, 2023 Paper: $29.95 Genre: Music, Biography Reviewed by Doug Simms Willie Moseley’s (Senior Writer for Vintage Guitar Magazine) well-illustrated chronological review of Roger Fritz’s diverse life and accomplishments presents a dazzling matrix of opportunities fulfilled that could easily occupy several lifetimes. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to be a popular guitar tech/luthier and have a successful guitar company, it's all here. Willie [...]

be gentle with Black girls by Tania De’Shawn Element Agape, 2022 Paper: $15.00 Genre: Poetry Reviewed by: Katharine Armbrester In one of the poems from her chapbook be gentle with Black girls, Tania De’Shawn writes: “adulthood ravished my girlhood like a relaxer on virgin hair…on the days when your skin is a minefield of triggers / breathe.” Laced with pain and raw emotion, her work will leave the reader shaken, educated, and roused by De’Shawn’s writing. Adultification bias is the [...]

A True & Just Record  by Kate Bolton Bonnici Boiler House Press, 2023 Paper: $16.99 Genre: Poetry Reviewed by Alina Stefanescu "Every fiction feigns," said literary critic George Steiner, reiterating what Plato found troubling about tragic theater and poetry. Every fiction feigns, and such feigning appeals to our feelings. The poet cannot be trusted, Plato insisted. The tragic drama works the mind into a froth and abandons reason.  Imagination has always been dangerous to dictators. Let's imagine to spite them: imagine [...]

Old Enough: Southern Women Artists and Writers on Creativity and Aging Edited by Jay Lamar and Jennifer Horne With Katie Lamar Jackson and Wendy Reed Photographs by Carolyn Sherer University of Georgia Press, 2024 Hardback: $34.95 Genre: Essay Reviewed by Kerry Madden-Lunsford I left my family in California in 2009 when I accepted a job at UAB teaching creative writing as the freelance life was not conducive to mounting college tuitions for our kids. I spent my first night in Birmingham in a new [...]

By Sharony Green Olympia Publishers, 2023 Bumblebee Paperback Edition: L8.99 UK, $10.84 Amazon Genre: Children’s Fiction Reviewed by Karen Hilgartner Follow Delores Rayshell Ravine as she tags along with her “Aunt Better,” an aspiring actor currently doing “day work” as a housekeeper for a successful young fashion designer, Miss Oona Levine. Author and historian Sharony Green takes the reader on a day in the life of young Delores when her Aunt Betty, who she accidentally named Aunt “Better” when she was [...]

by Rose McLarney Penguin Poets, 2024 Paperback: $20.00 Genre: Poetry Review by Ken Autrey  Poet Rose McLarney’s Colorfast is her fourth full collection, her third published in the prestigious Penguin Poets series. As in her previous work, the poet’s southern Appalachian roots are readily visible here. There are frequent references to family heritage, gardening, the lush natural world, and her home in western North Carolina, with its somewhat exalted title as “the gem mine capital of the world.” But these poems [...]

Double Lives By Mary Monroe Kensington Publishing, 2024 Paper: $27 Genre: Fiction/Historical Reviewed by Charlotte C. Teague  Amid themes of murder and betrayal, New York Times best-selling author and Alabama native Mary Monroe weaves together a captivating story about deception and extraordinary familial bonds in her new novel, Double Lives. Set in rural Alabama in the early 1900s through the 1930s, the plot begins against a backdrop of Black Southern life and culture ranging from eating pig ears to drinking moonshine. [...]

The House of Being: Why I Write By Natasha Trethewey Yale University Press, 2024 Hardcover: $18 Genre: Literary Criticism/Memoir Reviewed by Steve Harrison. Natasha Trethewey's new book is a prose meditation on memory, violence, and language. The title comes from her father's reminders that, as Martin Heidegger observed, "Language is the house of being." Trethewey explores the ways in which the boundaries of personal identity and social justice are determined by words: what is said, how it is said, and what [...]

Small Altars By Justin Gardiner Tupelo Press, 2024 Paperback: $21.95 Genre: Lyric Essay, Memoir Reviewed by Edward Journey Beyond the platitudes and self-help books on grief and how to cope with it, there is a significant sub-genre of literary and very personal reckonings with grief. These include works like the novel Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli, Tess Gallagher’s poetry in Moon Crossing Bridge, and the memoir Passing: A Memoir of Love and Death by Michael Korda. Of course, Joan Didion’s The [...]

Grandma Annie’s Poetry By Ramona L. Hyman Illustrated by Art Dan 105 Publishing, 2022 Paperback: $12.99 Amazon Reviewed by Karen Hilgartner “Poetry is a little like faith. You can’t understand it all the time, but you sure can feel it,” says Grandma Annie. Young readers will move to the rhythm and flow of poetry in author Ramona L. Hyman’s, Grandma Annie’s Poetry, as Blessing, accompanied by her twin brother Billy, describes how her Grandma Annie’s poetry makes them feel. She says [...]

Fireball (play) By Norman McMillan Premiered March 8, 2024, at Montevallo Main Street Players; Montevallo, Alabama Directed by Gregory Wayne Martin Starring Ingrid McGraw Based on the book Fireball By Hazel Lindsey and Julia McMillan Walker GreyWalk Books, 2015 Paperback: $15.00 Genre: Memoir Anyone who has had the opportunity to spend time with Norman McMillan knows that he is an engaging and skillful storyteller. McMillan, a long-time professor, department chair, and current Professor Emeritus at the University of Montevallo, has won [...]

Muscadine By A. H. Jerriod Avant Four Way Books, 2023 Paper, $17.95 Genre: Poetry Reviewed by Daniel DeVaughn  This review originally appeared in American Literary Review (Fall 2023). The muscadine is an unusual fruit. Native to the Southeastern United States, it was the first grape to be cultivated in North America. Its natural range extends from Florida north to Delaware, and it can be found growing in the wild from Georgia to eastern Texas. Sir Walter Raleigh mentions it in an [...]

The Forest That Fire Made: An Introduction to the Longleaf Pine Forest By John McGuire, Carol Denhof, and Byron Levan; foreword by Rhett Johnson University of Georgia Press, 2023 Paper: $34.95 Reviewed by Cindy Ragland We often disregard the value of an introduction, until we find ourselves in unfamiliar territory.  For decades most of the publications on longleaf pine and its ecosystem have been peer-to-peer, with the notable exception of Janisse Ray’s Ecology of a Cracker Childhood. As a long-time practitioner [...]