Alex Bledsoe grew up in west Tennessee an hour north of Graceland (home of Elvis) and twenty minutes from Nutbush (birthplace of Tina Turner). He has been a reporter, editor, photographer and door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman. He now lives in a Wisconsin town famous for trolls.Bledsoe's new novel is The Fairies of Sadieville, the sixth book in his Tufa series.
Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. His reply:
In fiction, I’m currently reading an advance copy of The Darkest Time of Night by Jeremy Finley (out June 28 from St. Martin’sVisit Alex Bledsoe's website.Press). I’m friends with his agent, who sent it to me because a) he correctly thought it would be right up my alley, and 2) Finley, like me, is a Tennesseean.
There are two things about it that immediately grabbed my attention. One is the topic: possible alien abduction of a child. Two is the first-person protagonist, a sharp, tenacious elderly grandmother. There are inevitably some X-Files moments, but for the most part the story stays focused on the emotional reality of the characters, rather than the intricacies of plot or conspiracy. I’ve just hit a point near the end where something totally unexpected has happened, that bothclarifies some of the mystery and opens up many new ones.
In non-fiction, I’m reading an advance copy of collected film reviews by the late Jim Ridley, People Only Die of Love in the Movies (out June 21 from Vanderbilt University Press). Ridley was the award-winning film critic for the Nashville Scene, an independent weekly, and I was lucky enough to meet him a couple of times when I lived there. His reviews cover both then-current titles and older films featured at revival showings, and both his love of movies and his wit are on full display here (he refers to the Spartan War film 300 as “the movie equivalent of a Molly Hatchet album cover”).
The Page 69 Test: The Fairies of Sadieville.
--Marshal Zeringue
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