“Broiler,” the latest book by Pope County writer Eli Cranor, entangles two couples whose lives orbit a chicken plant in Northwest Arkansas. Combining elements of expose journalism with conventions of tension and suspense, the novel sets in motion a chain reaction plot that rapidly moves through ransom demands, thefts and hostage-taking.
Wesley Beal
Posted inRock Candy
‘The misery of really growing up’: A Q&A with writer Kiley Reid
“Come and Get It,” Kiley Reid’s new novel set at the University of Arkansas, offers a deft examination of how young people negotiate their first brushes with independence and responsibility. Reid is particularly attuned to how her characters navigate matters of money and consumption.
Posted inEntertainment
Heat and pandemic be damned, Phish offered a ‘temporary reprieve from gravity’ at the Walmart AMP last night
It was the band’s first ever date in Arkansas, which felt like a kind of personal validation somehow. And it was the band’s first public show since closing out a short run in Mexico in February of 2020. Expectations were running, ah, high among those I met in the queue at the gates and inside on the lawn.
Posted inEntertainment
Kevin Brockmeier’s ‘The Ghost Variations’ brings ghosts out of the ether and into the everyday
Brockmeier, the Little Rock-raised author of eight books that probe the fantastical, offers one hundred vignettes on a wide range of ghostly perspectives.
Posted inEntertainment
A review of the late John Churchill’s “The Problem with Rules”
Churchill’s book arrives a year and change after his death, in a dispiriting moment. The foreword, written by his youngest son Hugh and his brother Larry, notes that liberal arts deliberation is sorely lacking through the pandemic as we struggle to balance public health services and the needs of the economy.
Posted inEntertainment
Recommended reading: Ling Ma’s “Severance” is an uncanny novel for these times
Ma’s debut novel is a prescient look at life during a pandemic, but it’s also an uncanny meditation on work.