Book of the Week

We Southerners love our local authors and eagerly anticipate the latest from Pat Conroy, Mary Alice Monroe, Anne Rivers Siddons, Dorothea Benton Franks and more. The rich Southern writing heritage is not confined to South Carolina, though, so you might want to look beyond our borders while awaiting the next South Carolina release.

I have enjoyed Georgian Ferrol Sams, and North Carolinians Lee Smith and Clyde Edgerton for years. In his latest book, The Night Train, Edgerton turns his keen, wry eye toward young men of the small-town South during the civil rights era.

When black teenager Larry Lime, an aspiring jazz musician, introduces his white friend, Dwayne, to James Brown’s "Live at the Apollo" album, walls between the races begin to crumble in Starke, N.C.