Fireflies, Glow-Worms, & Lightning

As the director of the Southern Foodways Association, John T. Edge has long sought to understand the South, its history, and people, through its food, then and now. What people choose to eat, eat when they have no choice, eat where and with whom, is life sustaining, literally and figuratively. In the South, with its rich agricultural environment and mix of complex, fascinating, and sometimes troubled people, food can tell a story. Going back sixty years, John T. has in his prose, sussed out these stories and by writing it down, is helping to shape a better future. -- CFR

This debut novel by a Canadian journalist who has reported on war from Afghanistan to the Black Lives Matter movement imagines a Second Civil War in the US in the years 2074-2093 and its aftermath. Not surprisingly, the states of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia ("the MAG") secede over oil issues from a Union that has quite literally, mostly due to climate change, deteriorated into a smaller country whose capital is Columbus, Ohio. Mexico has reclaimed its old territories, a president has been assassinated, the Mississippi River is now the Mississippi Sea... Well-drawn southerners struggle to keep body and soul together and to undermine the northern aggressors One woman in particular, Sarat, emerges as a hero but....no spoilers! Compelling and scary. --  LH