By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jul 31st, 2023
0 Comments
1024 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...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jun 30th, 2023
0 Comments
793 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Viktor Frankl’s groundbreaking book, originally published in 1959, details his experience as a prisoner of war during World War II, his post-war development of a school of psychother...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jun 30th, 2023
0 Comments
809 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “Among many enumerated rights that the government cannot abridge, the right to vote remained conspicuously absent and remains so to this day.” In Lichtman’s book centered on the history of voting rights in America, the most surprising revelation is the book’s premise...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Jun 30th, 2023
0 Comments
1251 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “Amma experienced commitment to one person as imprisonment. She hadn’t left home for a life of freedom and adventure to end up chained to another’s person’s desires.” Evaristo’s novel revolves around the lives of twelve black women in Europe. In a woven narrative of pasts ...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
May 31st, 2023
0 Comments
2291 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “Because something in him knew she’d be there. That she was waiting. Because that’s what mothers do. They wait. They stand still until their children belong to someone else.” Ocean Vuong’s memoir is equal parts harrowing and gorgeous, as evident in its title. I was drawn t...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
May 31st, 2023
0 Comments
1160 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “Maybe our parents’ lives are imprinted within us, maybe the only fate there is is the temptation of reliving their mistakes. Maybe, try as we might, we will never be able to outrun the blood that runs through our veins. Or maybe we are free the moment we are born.” Nina [...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
May 2nd, 2023
0 Comments
2283 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE “We must believe in our souls that we are somebody, that we are significant, that we are worthful, and we must walk the streets of life every day with this sense of dignity and this sense of somebody-ness.” Whitehead’s gripping novel is based on The Arthur G. Dozier School...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Mar 30th, 2023
0 Comments
1079 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE Four-year-old Wavy and her little brother Donal are raising themselves on a meth compound. The sporadically present parents are emotionally neglectful and physically abusive, as Valerie struggles with addiction and mental illness and Liam resents the children’s existence t...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Mar 30th, 2023
0 Comments
1244 Views
review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE Bonnie Garmus’s debut novel Lessons in Chemistry showcases a sucker punch narrative laced with social commentary. With the ever changing dynamic for women’s roles and perceptions in society, Garmus looks back at where they’ve been. In the 1960s, Elizabeth Zott is an aspiri...
By Nathan Coker
In Bayou Pages
Feb 28th, 2023
0 Comments
957 Views
by Tina Miles review by MEREDITH MCKINNIE In 1850, enslaved Rose learns her nine-year-old daughter Ashley will be sold after the death of the plantation’s master. Rose hurriedly packs a cotton sack with pecans, a braid of her own hair, a dress, and composed a brief note, “with my love, always” before...
