Thacker Mountain Radio Rocks September

Thacker Mountain Radio on Thursday, September 20th at 6 p.m. features a double reading from two fine writers. Mississippian and Emory University historian Joe Crespino reads and signs copies of STROM THURMOND'S AMERICA (Hill & Wang, hd., 30.00). In his new book, Crespino adjusts the image of the late South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond (1902-2003), and reveals how he helped foster modern conservatism and altered the course of the nation. Crespino's wife, the lovely Caroline Herring, who just so happens to be a founding member of Thacker, is the featured musical guest.     We also have Michael Morris. A graduate of Auburn, Morris also holds a MFA from Spalding University, and has written a new book MAN IN THE BLUE MOON (Tyndale, pb. 13.99), a drama of love, loyalty, betrayal and redemption set in Florida at the turn of the century. Ella Wallace is raising three sons alone and struggling to hold on to the land that's been in her family for generations. A mysterious man convinces her that he can help her, but it's soon apparent that he is as haunted by his past as Ella is terrified for her future.

September 27th Thacker welcomes Lawrence Norfolk.

Lawrence Norfolk, author of Lempriere's Dictionary and The Pope's Rhinoceros, has written a new novel that will be among the biggest fiction books of the fall. A young boy growing up in a 17th Century English village, John Saturnall is cast into the forest when the villagers believe his mother to be a witch. She is ill and starving, and without the knowledge John has gained from her of how to prepare food from the wild, he would surely die, too. He is taken on as a kitchen boy at a nearby manor, where his culinary skills serve to advance his position in the kitchen and his status in the household, and soon he has caught the eye of Lady Lucretia. Under threat from dogmatic Christians and looming Civil War, whether John Saturnall's skills, cunning and chance can meet the great challenges of time create the tension of John Saturnall's Feast (Grove Press, hd. 25.00), a novel that will appeal to readers who enjoy history, cooking, romance, and drama, brilliantly written.  RH