By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jul 1st, 2024
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60 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “Weddings, she quickly discovered, were about everything except the health of a couple’s relationship. They were social performances, the purpose of which varied from family to family. And they were competitive.” Gonzalez’s debut novel Olga Dies Dreaming opens with the tit...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jul 1st, 2024
0 Comments
53 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “Why books? Because no other thing possesses that mystical faculty to make people see with other people’s eyes. The Library is a bridge of books between cultures.” No surprise, I’m a self-professed bibliophile, and gravitate towards books about books. Reading the intricate...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
May 1st, 2024
0 Comments
121 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “Sometimes which choice you make is not as important as making a choice and committing to it.” Matthew McConaughey, the Oscar winning actor best known for romantic comedy, box office gold and shirtless paparazzi photos, has published a memoir to surprisingly rave reviews. ...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
May 1st, 2024
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112 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “Trauma is not what happens to you but what happens inside you.” I first fell in love with Barbara Kingsolver’s voice while reading Flight Behavior, which I reviewed here in May of 2022. Kingsolver’s impressive ability to take on entire literary worlds is astounding in sco...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Apr 1st, 2024
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139 Views
“Being a Windsor meant working out which truths were timeless, and then banishing them from your mind. It meant absorbing the basic parameters of one’s identity, knowing by instinct who you were, which was forever a byproduct of who you weren’t.” When I requested the Spare’s memoir from the Ouachita...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Feb 29th, 2024
0 Comments
181 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “The young delude themselves that the music will never stop playing. So it makes sense for them to explore rather than savor; to meet new people rather than to devote time to their nearest and dearest; to learn new skills and soak up information, rather than ponder the mea...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Feb 29th, 2024
0 Comments
150 Views
“Even in a place of sorrow, time passes. Even in a place of joy. Do not assume that either keeps life from continuing.” I n Honoree Fanonne Jeffers’ first novel, the poet blesses readers with a multi-generational saga. The physically heavy text of historical fiction spans the lives of early Native Am...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jan 31st, 2024
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534 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.” Christmas is a time for reading the classics, or so I believe. I kept Betty Smith’s novel on my shelf for the last few years, […...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jan 31st, 2024
0 Comments
138 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “Some people were complete in themselves, as if born from the earth or the ocean, like some of the gods. Which was not a compliment. The gods were ruthlessly indifferent to humanity.” Critically-acclaimed author Kate Atkinson had evaded me to this point. I had never heard ...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jan 2nd, 2024
0 Comments
565 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “Who ever thinks, recalling the face of the one they loved who is gone: yes, I looked at you enough, I loved you enough, we had enough time, any of this was enough?” In Cambridge, Massachusetts, 12-year-old Noah Gardner, aka Bird, attends school and comes home to his fathe...
