“Girl­child” is the quite extra­or­di­nary debut novel from writer Tupelo Has­s­man. Sum­mary: Rory Hen­drix is the least likely of Girl Scouts. She hasn’t got a troop or even a badge to call her own. But she’s checked the Hand­book out from the ele­men­tary school library so many times that her name fills all the lines on the […]

Eve­lyn Toynton’s new biog­ra­phy reveals the life and leg­end og the artist Jack­son Pol­lock. Sum­mary: Jack­son Pol­lock (1912–1956) not only put Amer­i­can art on the map with his famous “drip paint­ings,” he also served as an inspi­ra­tion for the char­ac­ter of Stan­ley Kowal­ski in Ten­nessee Williams’s A Street­car Named Desire—the role that made Mar­lon Brando famous. […]

“Doc” by Mary Doria Rus­sell is the story about how Doc Hol­l­i­day and Wyatt Earp met in Dodge City back in 1878. Sum­mary: The year is 1878, peak of the Texas cat­tle trade. The place is Dodge City, Kansas, a saloon-filled cow town jammed with liquored-up ado­les­cent cow­boys and young Irish hook­ers. Vio­lence is ran­dom and […]

“Sal­vage the Bones” by Jes­myn Ward is a book about four devoted sib­lings fac­ing Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina. Sum­mary: A hur­ri­cane is build­ing over the Gulf of Mex­ico, threat­en­ing the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mis­sis­sippi, and Esch’s father is grow­ing con­cerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn’t show con­cern for much else. Esch and her three […]

“Immor­tal Bird: A Fam­ily Mem­oir” by Doron Weber is a book abouth death in the fam­ily — about how the author lost his son due to a heart con­di­tion. Sum­mary: A stir­ring, gor­geously writ­ten mem­oir of a father’s strug­gle to pro­tect his son — a model stu­dent and gifted actor — from a rare heart […]