-
Heartlands Best Reads of 2017: #6 Sing, Unburied, Sing
Mississippi has many layers. William Faulkner knew this and crafted his intricate tales of Yoknapatawpha County with characters haunted by the past, spurred by subterranean passions, and trapped in violent, tragic relationships. Jesmyn Ward claims Faulkner as an literary influence and it shows in her rich novels of Bois Sauvage, like Yoknapatawpha, a fictional rendering →
-
Heartlands Best Reads of 2017: #7 All the Pretty Horses
I’m sure Cormac McCarthy has been dying to see if this accolade would come his way. His 1992 novel, All the Pretty Horses, is now 25 years old, but I just got around to it this year. Something about spending a month in West Texas made it seem like an appropriate companion. And it was. McCarthy →
-
Heartlands Best Reads of 2017: #8 American Fire
Of course, it had local appeal for those of us on the Eastern Shore, but Monica Hesse’s exploration of the 2012-13 arson spree here that damaged 60+ structures was masterful writing. In American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land, the Washington Post reporter used the window of the crime to explore what →
-
Why Katherine Sonderegger Gets 10 Pages a Day: A Review of Her Systematic Theology
If your fine-grain theological vocabulary has grown a little rusty with lack of use, as I’m afraid mine has, you will find Katherine Sonderegger’s Systematic Theology: Volume One, Doctrine of God [Fortress, 2015] daunting. I’m not ashamed to say that it took me nearly a year to get through it. By this fall, however, I →
-
Heartlands Best Reads of 2017: #9 Can You See Anything Now?
We continue the idiosyncratic countdown of best reads of 2017 with all its caveats: not all published in 2017, not limited by genre but limited by Alex having to have read them. Don’t let my limitations keep you from Katherine James’ debut novel Can You See Anything Now?–a book with the rich texture of human tragedy →
-
Heartlands Best Reads of 2017: #10 Strangers In Their Own Land
It’s been a great year for reading. I credit Sarah Willson Craig for inviting me into a real mid-life reading renaissance. She’s the one who posted the Better World Reading Challenge on Facebook in 2016 and got a group of friends committed. I’m grateful. Since everyone else is doing their end-of-the-year list, I decided to →
-
A Tear for Bois Sauvage: A Review of Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
It’s not often that the ending of a book makes me moist-eyed. And I can’t ever recall when the acknowledgements did that. But there it was in the final sentences on page 289 of Sing, Unburied, Sing, the 2017 National Book Award-winning novel by Jesmyn Ward: “In closing, I’d like to thank everyone in my →
-
The Consolations of the Curveball – A Review of Off Speed
The season is over. The World Series is receding to a mischievous gleam in Jose Altuve’s eyes. Carlos Correa proposed to his girlfriend on the field as the confetti was still falling. Verlander married Kate Upton. It’s time to wish them well and sit by the hot stove and set baseball aside until pitchers →
-
A God’s-Eye View: The Heartlands Interview with Katherine James, 3 of 3
A town named Trinity is bound to have some things to say about God. In this final segment of my interview with debut novelist Katherine James, (whose book, Can You See Anything Now?, was published in October), we dig into the the book and find a Christian vision. For previous segments, click here. One of the →
-
Free to Use Dangling Participles: The Heartlands Interview with Katherine James, 2 of 3
Let’s not put Katherine James’s debut novel, Can You See Anything Now?, (recently reviewed here on Heartlands), into a box called Christian fiction. She is a Christian and there are strong Christian themes in the book, but this is not an Amish romance. James tackles difficult themes like suicide, cutting, and substance abuse with vivid, →
/
Tumblr
/
Heartlands 