We had the pleasure of meeting Susan Rebecca White shortly after we read (and reviewed) her well-received debut novel, Bound South, and later met up with her at Eddie’s Attic for the Carrie Rodriquez show last spring, demonstrating (to us) that she is not only a fantastic storyteller but a discriminating music fan too. Back then, she was working dilligently on her third novel. Now number two has just been released by Touchstone.

She is kicking off her book tour here in Atlanta, April 14 at the Carter Center. She will be introduced by Kathryn Stockett whose fabouslously popular, The Help, recently marked its 52nd consecutive week on the New York Times bestseller list. If you need a bigger endorsement than that, you might want to know that the release date of Susan’s second novel was moved up because Target (yes, the big box behemoth) has selected it as its Club Pick of the month for April. Wow…

What’s more, Yankee Rose recently finished her advance copy of A Soft Place to Land with the following comment, “What a great book!” [italics in orginal]. Now we’re trying to coax her into sharing more of her thoughts about the book with you. Watch for a review.

In the meantime, please see Susan Rebecca White on Wednesday at 7 at the Carter Center.

By Yankee Rose & Rube Ambler

It’s our last list of the year (whew) and a little shorter than the others, but still a good list (we think). As we consider our favorite books that were first published this year, we also thought for a minute about one thing that usually distinguishes book lovers from music lovers – their continuing interest in discovering the classics. It really is no surprise after all. It takes less than 80 minutes to listen to The Basement Tapes again (even including the time it takes to flip, switch, and flip the two records). It takes considerably longer to reread The Great Gatsby. What’s more, the attentive reader, like the attentive listener, wants to spend some time with the artist’s work so speeding through isn’t in order.

That same ratio of time invested applies when discovering that great work for the first time. Your first go around with The White Album will take less time than a bowl game. Your first time through The White Tiger: A Novel (a modern classic in our eyes) may take an entire bowl season. This is all by way of noting that several of the best books we read for the first time this year, were not published this year. We have written about some, like the The White Tiger and Coyote Blue, and let you know we were reading others, such as Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, and will continue to do so to let you discover whatever book you may need to read but haven’t yet come across.

We did read a fair number of new books though, so we thought we would share a quick list of those that really stood out in the crowd. Here they are.

Fool by Christopher Moore (January 31, 2009).

If you didn’t guess we were fans of Christopher Moore, you probably missed my gushing reviews of Fool and Coyote Blue. Rube introduced me to Moore last Spring, and I have torn through his books as fast as I could get my hands on them. While Fool is not a traditional Moore novel, it is a wonderful retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear that will bring a new light to the workings of one medieval royal family.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett (February 9, 2009).

Recommended to me by our favorite local librarian, The Help is an excellent depiction of the civil rights movement in a small Mississippi town. As much about the changing role of women in the South as the ever-present race struggles of the era, this book empowers all to make their own small differences in the world.

Bound South by Susan Rebecca White (February 9, 2009).

Bound South is the debut novel of Atlanta resident Susan Rebecca White. Bound South is an excellent depiction of class struggles in the South, taking The Help forward 40 years to examine class struggles that have moved beyond racial lines. We reviewed it here, and look forward to her next book, A Soft Place to Land, due out this May.

All The Broken Pieces by Ann Burg (April 1, 2009).

A stunning debut for the young reader in your home (even if it’s you). After what I wrote in my review earlier this year, it had to be a lock for this list.

Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music by Greg Kot (May 19, 2009).

Greg Kot’s investigation of the forces that have moved music from the CD to the MP3 is great fun for the music fan, and we might suggest required reading for anybody who thinks they need to be in the music business.

Chronic Cityby Jonathan Lethem (October 13, 2009).

This novel narrated by a former child actor is set in an alternate reality Manhattan where you can get a “War Free” edition of the Times.  But the meta text hardly stops there and in end all that we really know is real about this story may (or may not) be the human condition Lethem so skillfully navigates.

Reviewed by Yankee Rose

Bound South (Touchstone, Feb. 2009) is the first novel by Atlanta native and Inman Park resident Susan Rebecca White.  Written from the point of view of three Atlanta area women, the novel primarily addresses the class chasm that has become so prominent in modern Atlanta.  Louise, the Ansley Park matriarch who is stuck between her southern upbringing and modern culture, is the central character who brings us in contact with the other southern women who shape this novel: her best friend, her daughter, her mother-in-law, and her housekeeper.  The housekeeper’s daughter and Louise’s own rebellious daughter are the other two voices that narrate the novel.

While the class differences are evident from the author’s descriptions of the characters lives, to some extent there is a secret language spoken in this book.  As a recent transplant to Atlanta, this is a language I do not yet speak.  I found myself turning to a map on more than one occasion (where’s Loganville?), and I am sure there were subtleties stemming from the characters’ geographic origins that were completely lost on me.

As the dominant narrator, Louise brought her wealth and snobbery with her into every chapter.  The other storytellers are interesting, but it is as if they never have a chance to grow to full height in Louise’s shadow.

Though I found myself immediately turning away from Louise, by the end of the novel you cannot help but admire her.  She has a direct manner, is honest about her own faults, and gracious with her bounty.  Her daughter, Caroline, who has fallen in and out of her role as a transplanted southern woman, eventually sheds much of the expectations that came with that casting.

I would have liked to know much more about Missy, the housekeeper’s daughter.  The contrast between her lifestyle and that of her mother’s employer is the hidden power in this book.  The comparisons are dramatic: rich and poor, educated and unable to finish high school, Christian and agnostic, proper and uncultured.  Missy’s devotion to God and longing for her father make for a strong character who is able to stand on her own with these two privileged women.  However, and possibly a reflection of which side of town we live on, I was never able to identify with Missy.

We look forward to hearing more from Ms. White when we sit down with her later this month.  We expect to learn a little bit more about her women of Atlanta and find out what may be in store for her next work.  Look for that interview in the coming weeks only on Atlanta’s A-List.

In the meantime, if we’ve piqued your interest (and we hope we have), pick up a copy of Bound South, and please join us and Ms. White for a discussion of at Bound to Be Read Books on September 17 at 7PM.