By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jan 31st, 2024
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754 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
318 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
813 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...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Dec 1st, 2023
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327 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “History doesn’t record the intricacies of women’s relationships with one another; they’re not to be uncovered.” The heartbeat of historical fiction palpitates in this novel reminiscent of a murder mystery dinner theater, yet served with a book spine. In 1791, Nella operat...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Sep 29th, 2023
0 Comments
432 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “The shock of the water – there is nothing like it on land. The temporary reprieve from gravity. It’s just like flying. The pure pleasure of being in motion. The dissipation of all want. I’m free.” Julie Otsuka’s novel explores the mundane nature of daily human exist...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Sep 29th, 2023
0 Comments
411 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “I ran my finger along his collarbone and said: I can’t remember if I thought about this at the beginning. How it was doomed to end unhappily. He nodded, looking at me. I did, he said. I just thought it would be worth it.” SallyRooney’s first novel, published in 2017, foll...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Sep 1st, 2023
0 Comments
471 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “I guess somewhere in a corner of our hearts, we are always twenty.” Kelly’s sweeping historical fiction novel chronicles the Rabbits – the women confined in the Ravensbruck concentration camp who were subjected to experimental surgical procedures that left survivors...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Sep 1st, 2023
0 Comments
432 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “And what was I to say? Most days, these days, I didn’t feel as though I loved him. Most days I thought of him as a problem I would have to solve eventually, when I felt like making the effort.” I hesitate to review novels set in the world of academia, a […]...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jul 31st, 2023
0 Comments
1089 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “Names are talismans of memory too – Katrina, Camille. Perhaps this is why we name our storms.” When we think of Hurricane Katrina, we think of New Orleans. The media’s fascination with the Big Easy resonated across our screens as we watched people stranded on roofto...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jul 31st, 2023
0 Comments
486 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “I was what I was and could no more choose my family, even a family denied me, than I could choose a country that denies us all the same.” On a 19th century Virginia plantation, young Hiram Walker knows only the landscape in front of him. As the dominance of American [&hel...
