Rhythm and Books

Who Lives Here? And Why? - Carson Ellis Brings Us 'Home'

The February selection for our Child's First Book Club has been sparking conversation and imagination since we unveiled it on Tuesday. The book is Home by Carson Ellis. Ellis is best known as the illustrator for the Wildwood series and for the band The Decemberists, which is led by her husband Colin Meloy. But perhaps Home will establish her more prominently in the minds of children and their parents. After all, this book is anything but ordinary.

The premise is simple: these are the places where people (or creatures) live. It begins as an exploration of the usual comparisons. Country house, city house. Tall house, short house. Clean house, messy house. We've all read children's books that start exactly like this. But something about Ellis' illustrations suggests an atmosphere of whimsy and mystery below the surface. Her watercolors are heavy on browns, grays, and shades of reddish pink, and they remind you of the palettes of classic kid's books, or of wintry greeting cards from a century ago. And the longer you gaze at each page, you notice something just a little quirky in the corner. When you and your child reach the halfway point, Home explodes beyond the boundaries of our normal concepts of that word.

It turns on the provocative question "But whose home is this?" The illustration depicts a tiny mountain fortress, and no residents are visible. From then on the reader is asked to answer similar questions about the progressively more imaginative homes on display. The locales stretch from Slovakia to Kenya, from Atlantis to the Moon. But on the final pages, Ellis (dare we say?) brings it all back home.

We're confident our kids club members and their folks will return to this book again and again, and we're excited about the buzz around it. Members of the Child's First Book Club receive a brand new, signed children's book at the start of each month, and it costs nothing except the price of the book. Sign up today and we'll send you Home before we run out!

 

Turnrow 20 Spotlight: God'll Cut You Down

God'll Cut You Down / John Safran / Riverhead Books (US)

John Safran is a specialist in offensiveness, especially when it comes to things like race, religion, and gender. As the host of Race Relations in his native Australia, Safran managed to switch Palestinian and Israeli sperm samples, walk around Chicago in blackface, and get himself crucified in the Philippines. For one such stunt, he appeared at a white supremacist's young athletes rally here in Mississippi, where he announced to a puzzled audience that the event's organizer, Richard Barrett, tested positive for African DNA. After Barrett and his lawyers threatened legal action over the prank, the video footage got cut from the show. And that was that.

Until one year later.

Back in Melbourne, someone tipped off Safran about a bizarre murder in Rankin County, MS. Richard Barrett—the white supremacist whom he spoofed on his show—had been brutally stabbed to death and set on fire inside his rural home. The accused killer was 23-year-old Vincent McGee, an African American man who had been doing yard work for Barrett. Unable to resist the potential of a sensational trial (he of course proclaims himself a "race trekkie"), Safran strapped on his best Truman Capote hat and flew back to Mississippi. What he found was even more disturbing and complex than he could have imagined.

Safran's book chronicles every twist, turn, trap, and rabbit hole that he fell into during the ensuing months he spent around Jackson, MS. As a Jewish Australian, Safran is the ultimate outsider. He claims to know very little of Mississippi or its reputation elsewhere in the U.S., which makes him the perfect investigator and author on the case. This sets him up for moments that are hilarious, awkward, and sometimes poignant. Cozying up to the host of a white nationalist radio show, he ends up counseling the middle aged man on his love life:

"'My problem is,' he says, 'it's hard to get the kind of girl I want when they see that trailer and they know I am unemployed.' 'I'd spin it around,' I tell him. It seems like you're self-employed.'"

Mis-hearing McGee’s mother recalling the death of her other child from "crib death," he prods, "Crip death? Is that gang-related?" He even gets duped into buying flowers and transcribing love letters for Vincent McGee during his incarceration. Via his own buffoonish ignorance, Safran successfully portrays himself as a naive journalist. And no one he covers looks squeaky clean, either.

By the time you reach the closing chapters, you'll come to the same conclusion that Safran did: everyone is lying to some degree, and nothing is even as remotely simple as it seems. Was Barrett actually an FBI informant? Were he and McGee engaged in a sexual arrangement? Does the Mississippi Dept. of Corrections routinely deny black families visitation rights? Why did Barrett include the Government of Iran in his will? And most tantalizingly elusive of all: what on earth actually happened that night in Barrett’s house? When you read about the only item hanging in Barrett’s closet, all assumptions vanish out the window.

Fans of The Fall of the House of Zeus and the film Zodiac (in which the investigators also bite off more than they can chew) will love this book, as long as they have a sense of humor. Since Safran apparently videotaped and recorded so much of his experience, perhaps the story would've been more successful as one of his documentaries. It would've at least cut down on most chapters opening with some variant of “Turning on my Flip cam, I entered the Rankin Co. Judicial Building….” But for a strange adventure down the darkest alleys of Mississippi’s cursed history of racial tension, God’ll Cut You Down is a new classic from the unlikeliest of sources.

 

Turnrow 20 Spotlight: Black River

Black River / S. M. Hulse / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Black River could have been many different things. About five times you'll think it's going to be one way and then another. But it's always becoming something else - and this is a very good thing.

When you pick it up and look at the orange mountains and vintage typeface on the cover, you're positive it's a Western. You'll read the flap about Wes Carver returning to his Montana hometown to face his demons, and you're convinced you're about to open another Cormac McCarthy imitation. Then you read the first chapter and find that it's not just a bizarre way to begin a Western, but a perplexingly strange way to start a book. In just a few pages, you follow Wes and his wife out of the hospital with the bad news that her radiation treatments were ineffective and that she has been given weeks to live. In a stunning moment, she lays in bed asking Wes to play her a song on his fiddle. He can't. And when he looks up from his instrument she's already gone. And that's page 14.

It's devastating and undeniably powerful. So your next thought is that this trick is way too bold for a debut author. There's no way she can maintain this for the next 200 pages, and if she tries to, it'll be so maudlin you won't want to make it. But then Wes is already driving back to Montana with Claire's ashes in his truck, and he's forced to at least attempt reconciliation with his estranged stepson. Hours after getting back into town, we learn he has another reason to go back: Bobby Williams has a parole hearing coming up, and for some reason Wes is determined to keep this man in jail. And so it's almost like you've started another novel, but like Wes, you can't escape the deep shadow of that first chapter. Claire's benevolent, ghostly memory haunts the rest of the book.

Masterfully, Hulse reveals the darkness in Wes' past mere glimpses at a time. Most of this is done through the characterization of Wes himself, who is stubbornly stoic in ways both humorous and tragic.

Wes didn't do well with sympathy. Never had. There would be cards piling up back at home, well-meaning but trite condolences, and he'd toss them all unopened. "Well." He took another step down to the gravel, rocked a stone against the sole of his boot. "Known for a long time she might not make it."

As Wes and his stepson Dennis prepare to cast Claire's ashes into a mountaintop wind, this laconic grief reaches its apex:

"Should we say something?" Wes walked to the edge of the ridge, felt a clump of damp soil give way under his feet. "Can if you want to." But neither of them did. Didn't move, either, and they stood together for a long moment, Wes noticing Dennis's eyes getting a sheen to them. His own eyes were dry, but his heart beat hard in his chest, drumming against his breastbone in irregular bursts of impossible speed.

At times Wes' tendency to skip articles and pronouns in his speech slips into caricature, but by then you've already grown empathetic for the profound sorrow and regret that never peeks out between his terse phrases.

And so by now you're convinced that you're knee-deep in a poignant family drama in the style of Marilynne Robinson. But even then you're wrong, because just when you think the 'climax' of this book will involve tearful hugging in view of pensive wild horses, another tragedy rears up out of nowhere and radically changes the tone once more. Now Wes races toward his moment of destiny with Bobby Williams and his bulging knuckles around the cold steering wheel might as well be your own.

Of course, all of these delightfully unexpected turns shouldn't distract you from the language, which is as gorgeous and sparse as the wide open landscapes of the West. Hulse's unique specialty might just be her ability to convey the beauty of lonesome fiddle music. Before his violent meeting with Williams, Wes was a naturally gifted fiddler in a sometime-touring bluegrass band. "Black River" is the town, the river, and the name of Wes' signature song:

Every day it was the last tune he played before his fiddle went back in its case, and every day it changed. Just a bit. The changes became smaller and subtler over the years: adding a grace note, dropping a double-stop, digging his bow more deeply into a string. Each time he played it, Claire knew she was one day closer to hearing a masterpiece. And then the riot. Bobby Williams. Dust on a chipboard case.

And in the end this is the greatest thing about Wes (and Black River itself): he is possessed by demons and haunted by ghosts, but they never consume him. And when he must finally face his encounter with Bobby Williams, you'll be surprised at what you're rooting for. Then Black River will pull its final trick, and the ending will both satisfy and leave you hoping for more, just like the last lingering notes of an old mountain melody.

The Winter 2015 Turnrow 20!

IT'S HERE! We've been previewing and reading the best books coming out over the next few months, and this is our take on the twenty best. In our list you'll find the best and worst of human nature, from Etta's transcontinental walk for love (in Etta and Otto and Russell and James) to the cannibalism of Michael Rockefeller in New Guinea (in Savage Harvest). We're also excited to feature signed copies and author events this spring. Skip Horack (The Other Joseph) and Michael Kardos (Before He Finds Her) will appear on a twinbill on 3/26. The other is the one we've all been waiting for: Jamie Kornegay launches his debut novel Soil with a huge bash here at the store on 3/10. Start reading!

After Birth by Elisa Albert

Ari, a recent transplant to a small college town, gave birth to her son a year ago. When former rock musician Mina moves to town, the two team up to make the task of new motherhood navigable. Ari offers a bitterly funny feminist view of being a mom and of female friendships. A must-read for those who can appreciate and enjoy a sarcastically hilarious, bravely honest take on modern motherhood and the complex, often contradictory emotions that come with it. 

Aquarium by David Vann

In this stunning family drama, the legacy of a tragic childhood haunts the next generation. A single mother runs into a figure from her past and takes drastic measures to teach her 12-year-old daughter how to be a survivor. Vann has the ability to entrance the reader with quiet, lucid prose, only to deliver an emotional gut-punch when his characters react in true and unexpected ways. An unforgettable, confrontational novel, balanced with beauty and redemption.

Before He Finds Her by Michael Kardos

Rising thriller writer Michael Kardos, a Mississippi State writer-in-resident, has given us a smart, twisty, character-driven mystery about a small-town New Jersey cold crime that is reignited when an eighteen-year-old girl, presumed to have been killed, comes out of hiding to learn more about the top suspect in her mother’s murder – her own father. Kardos doesn’t set this up like your typical whodunit, but he squeezes out every drop of page-turning surprise and suspense. Reserve your signed copy.

Black River by S.M. Hulse

Despite having all the elements of a modern Western – horses, Montana valleys, lone gunmen, and a stoic protagonist seeking redemption – this debut novel is actually a poignant family drama. Wes Carver returns to Black River hoping to reconcile with his estranged stepson and to exorcise the demons that have haunted him since a prison riot twenty years before. A masterpiece that signals the arrival of a brilliant new talent, Black River succeeds at spanning genres and inspiring hope in every kind of reader.

Blood Brothers by Ernst Haffner

Written in 1932 and banned by the ascendant Nazi party one year later, this lean, lightning-paced novel is the only known work of German social worker Ernst Haffner. The prose is all tight muscle and bone, just like its title characters: a band of teenage boys who skulk the streets of interwar Berlin, committing petty crimes and escaping from police and welfare boards. We’re excited to share this long-lost gem, translated into English for the first time.

Creatures of a Day by Irvin Yalom

A veteran psychiatrist opens his couch and shares some of his most interesting conversations with patients – under respectful disguises – to get at our most basic fear: our own mortality. Each case is deftly related, deeply explored, and satisfyingly resolved. The hypnotic ease and simplicity of Yalom’s prose and his hard-earned revelations make this book not only good reading but a psychological comfort.

Dead Wake by Erik Larson

Erik Larson has done it again. This time, the bestselling author of Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts tackles the doomed last voyage of the Lusitania. As we approach the hundredth anniversary of the tragedy that shoved Americans into the Great War, Larson masterfully weaves together the storylines that converged with a torpedo blast heard round the world. Reserve your signed copy.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper

You’ve never read a road trip novel like this one. Leaving her husband a note and taking a backpack and gun, 82-year-old Etta walks out and begins a thousand mile trek to the ocean. Hooper switches deftly between the steps of Etta’s journey and the event from sixty years earlier that prompted it. A powerfully moving tale of dreams deferred and redeemed. Signed copies available.

The First Bad Man by Miranda July

The life of an eccentric middle-aged woman turns chaotic when the twentysomething child of her boss moves into her apartment. Mere synopsis alone cannot account for the distinct narrative voice, numerous perverse turns, and outright hilarity that July brings to this relentless story of the unimagined choices we make to find a home.

Girl Runner by Carrie Snyder

An elderly Olympic athlete from the 1928 Games is kidnapped from her nursing home and taken by two supposed strangers. The initial mystery kept us riveted, but the girl runner’s story, and Snyder’s agile shifts in time, made this a clever and compelling novel.

God’ll Cut You Down by John Safran

Australian comedian and filmmaker John Safran bit off more than he could chew when he came to Mississippi. His madcap misadventures are chronicled in this true crime account, which quickly turns into a hall of mirrors of Mississippi’s darker secrets. Fans of The Fall of the House of Zeus will love this – as long as they have a sense of humor.

I Am Radar by Reif Larssen

An epic tale that follows the unusual life of Radar Radmanovic, beginning with his strange birth and throughout his lifelong struggles with love, his parents, and a terrible medical affliction. With Larssen’s characteristic quirks, we also meet a secret society of Norwegian schoolteachers who use radioactive material stolen from the Nazis to create surrealist performance art, an avant-garde puppeteer, a disfigured literature professor who assembles the largest library in the world, and a strange cast of other misfits who intersect with Radar. Fans of rich, generous epics like The Goldfinch should tune in to this one. Reserve your signed copy.

I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son by Kent Russell

The latest in a wave of exciting new talents in the art of non-fiction essays, Kent Russell takes us into volatile situations with oddball participants, faithfully portrayed through his own unique lens. Fresh prose, strange humor, and broad range. If you liked Pulphead or David Foster Wallace’s non-fiction, you should definitely dip into this.

My Sunshine Away by M. O. Walsh

An exceptional debut novel about young people growing up in Baton Rouge in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. On page three, the narrator confesses that he’s one of four suspected in a violent crime that occurred one summer in his neighborhood, and you’ll rip through the next 300 hoping he’s exonerated, unable to put this story down, always just one more chapter, one more, one more.  The prose goes down smooth, but the story may choke you up. Pat Conroy fans take note. Reserve your signed copy.

Once Upon an Alphabet by Oliver Jeffers

Alphabet books are a dime a dozen, but none are quite like this one from the artist of The Day the Crayons Quit. The stories for each letter of the alphabet are clever and funny and slightly off, and they sometimes swing back around and surprise us again. Think Where the Sidewalk Ends or Harold and the Purple Crayon. It’s that good—the kind of book a kid will keep and take with them to college.

The Other Joseph by Skip Horack

Roy Joseph is in self-exile on a Louisiana oil rig after his brother goes missing in the Gulf War. Then his parents die and he is convicted of a felony. All seems lost when he receives an email from a teenage girl claiming to be his lost brother’s daughter. This strange encounter may be his last chance to get to know his lost brother and to find redemption. More top-shelf fiction from one of our favorite young writers. Signing March 26; reserve your signed copy.

Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews

If you read spy novels regularly, then consider this required. If you enjoy one every now and then, then read this one now. Matthews, a former CIA operative himself, brings a fresh, authentic look at post-Cold War U.S.-Russian spy games. The memorable heroine, a sidelined ballet dancer, is bullied into the Russian intelligence service and trained in the art of seduction (“sexpionage”). She is tasked with luring the identity of a Russian mole out of a young American agent, and their tangled passions and allegiances make for irresistible cat-and-mouse drama.

Savage Harvest by Carl Hoffman

Michael Rockefeller (son of famed politician and philanthropist Nelson D.) traveled to New Guinea on a primitive art-gathering expedition in 1961. He never returned, and his ultimate demise -- whether by drowning or murder by a local tribe of warrior cannibals -- has always been a point of debate. Adventure writer Hoffman returns to the jungle to speak with tribal leaders who remember Rockefeller, and he presents the full, fascinating story of what happened when a young idealist wandered into a society of alien beliefs and traditions. A riveting tale of deadly culture clash.

Soil by Jamie Kornegay 

A modern-day Mississippi-based novel about a farmer who plunges into a series of bad decisions when he finds a dead man washed up in his flooded field. Okay, so we may be biased in our support of this debut novel by one of Turnrow’s own. But don’t take our word alone. Early readers have described it as “twisty and volatile,” “darkly droll” and “atmospheric as all get-out.” Signing March 10; reserve your signed copy.

Young Skins by Colin Barrett

From fertile literary Ireland comes one of the most exciting young voices we’ve heard in a long time. The stories in this debut collection are remarkable, making us feel deeply for the misfits and drunkards of Barrett’s present-day, small-town Ireland, and all the more so for the rich, beautiful, black-eyed gutter poetry in which he spins these classically steeped tales