Post & Courier suggests three books
The February 11, 2024, edition of the Post and Courier featured three new books, all of which sounded worth reading—–
Redwood Court A featured article written by Maura Hogan talks about a poet turned fiction writer. The writer is DeLana R. A. Dameron who grew up in Columbia, South Carolina. She starts her story by telling us about her childhood life on Redwood Court in Columbia. This warm and witty retelling of what was really Dameron’s own family–their strong ties to one another, their foiables and their challenges– has garnered much attention from those in the book world! The book came out in early February, and already a review in the February 4 New York Times states that , “Dameron is a prizewinning poet, and it shows.” Redwood Court has been chosen as a “Reese’s Book Club Pick” for the month of February.
The Sunday ‘book review’, written by Jonathan Haupt, reviews the book The Caretaker, by Ron Rasts. Rasts sets most of his twenty-one books in Appalachia, a place he knows and loves. The Caretaker is set in a North Carolina mill town and involves a man who goes off to the Korean War, leaving his new bride in the care of his best friend. Predictably, the wife and the best friend develop a close relationship that is complicated by the return of the soldier, who has suffered a debilitating injury in war. The story evolves into a mystery that needs to be solved in order to uncover a dreadful betrayal. Rasts is an author that Pat Conroy promoted enthusiastically while he was alive, believing that the author had an unique voice that needed to be heard.
The last of the books I read about today was written by George Pelecanos, an author who initially wrote crime novels set in Washington, DC. He is recently known for writing scripts for television, one of which is “The Wire.” Pelecanos’ new book, entitled Owning Up, is actually a set of four novellas, each around 50 pages. Every story takes a look at a concept that is similar to ‘the butterfly effect’–the notion that one single random act or poor choice can have long lasting wide spread effects on the everyday lives of many people.