By Reagan Henderson
In Bayou Pages
Jan 30th, 2025
0 Comments
1933 Views
REVIEW BY MEREDITH MCKINNIE “There is so much freedom in being anonymous.” When Britney Spears’ first album Baby One More Time dropped in 1999, her face and song by the same name were everywhere. She dominated the radio, MTV, and Total Request Live, the daily video show of top songs in the country. E...
By Reagan Henderson
In Bayou Pages
Jan 3rd, 2025
0 Comments
775 Views
REVIEW BY MEREDITH MCKINNIE “But at least she was married to the smartest, funniest man she had ever met, and that counted for everything…” In keeping with my current fascination with historical fiction, I anxiously cracked the new spine of Gill Paul’s 2022 novel The Manhattan Girls. I was intrigued ...
By Reagan Henderson
In Bayou Pages
Jan 3rd, 2025
0 Comments
1126 Views
REVIEW BY MEREDITH MCKINNIE “The first weapon I ever held was my mother’s hand.” I didn’t so much fall in love with Jesmyn Ward’s novels as I did with the power of Ward’s writing. She tackles hard, gritty subject matter, exposing the underbelly of American reality, and in this novel American history,...
By Reagan Henderson
In Bayou Pages
Oct 31st, 2024
0 Comments
722 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “I wanted to see who I was, without using another person’s love for me as a measurement of my value.” When I think of Jessica Simpson, I first think of the MTV show Newlyweds, in which she and then-husband Nick Lachey documented their first year of marriage, only to divorc...
By Reagan Henderson
In Bayou Pages
Oct 1st, 2024
0 Comments
780 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “Every time I remember that my mother is dead, it feels like I’m colliding with a wall that won’t give. There’s no escape, just a hard surface that I keep ramming over and over, a reminder of the immutable reality that I will never see her again.” Michelle Zauner’s meditat...
By Reagan Henderson
In Bayou Pages
Sep 2nd, 2024
0 Comments
698 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “The conversations that help me see the world most clearly are generally not with researchers, policymakers, or so-called experts. They aren’t with the people journalists crassly call ‘newsmakers’ at all. They’re with artists – especially writers.” The essence of Sh...
By Reagan Henderson
In Bayou Pages
Sep 2nd, 2024
0 Comments
863 Views
review by Meredith McKinnie “Happiness is harder to put into words. It’s also harder to source, much more mysterious than anger or sorrow, which come to me promptly, whenever I summon them, and remain long after I’ve begged them to leave.” When I want to laugh, I turn to author David Sedaris. In Caly...
By Reagan Henderson
In Bayou Pages
Jul 31st, 2024
0 Comments
1687 Views
“It was stunning how casual lying was woven into most married life.” Forever drawn to debut novels, I’m curious about what a budding author has to say. Is their goal to tell a good story, to write what they assume we want to read, to cloud social commentary in the balm of fiction? As a […]...
By Reagan Henderson
In Bayou Pages
Jul 31st, 2024
0 Comments
969 Views
“We often mistake love for fireworks – for drama and dysfunction. But real love is very quiet, very still. It’s boring, if seen from the perspective of high drama. Love is deep and calm – and constant.” Alicia and Gabriel Berenson’s love story featured displays of affection and tension-fi...
By Reagan Henderson
In Bayou Pages
Jul 1st, 2024
0 Comments
845 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...
