Inaugurations

During a week of new beginnings and hopeful looks into the year ahead, today we're inaugurating the Charter Books Signed First Editions Club. Subscribers receive a brand new hardcover signed book every 4-6 weeks. Our staff will pick only the best new novels to share with you, and I couldn't be more excited that our first selection is NICK by Michael Farris Smith.

I first met Michael during a book conference in New Orleans in 2017. He was there to promote his new novel DESPERATION ROAD. Sitting on a panel of other Southern writers, Michael stood out. He was the only Mississippian and a few heads taller than his fellow panelists. Quietly sipping a glass of whisky, he listened intently as each writer shared a passage from their work. When it was Michael's turn, we were surprised to hear his soft, gentlemanly voice. But the room fell dead silent when he started reading from the first pages of DESPERATION ROAD.

I refuse to typecast Michael or his characters, but he excels at scenes of, well, desperation. In the first lines of that novel, a woman and her child are trudging up the shoulder of Interstate 55 with all their possessions on their backs. Exhausted and shivering, they duck into a rest stop lavatory to clean up. Soon there's angry banging on the door. With the mother staring into the cracked mirror, Michael conjures vines crawling up her arms and neck.

And that’s just the first page!

Over the next few years and novels, Michael and I became friends during his visits to our store in Greenwood. We were delighted to share his work with our customers, and with every event he seemed to double the attendance. He was fiercely loyal to our store and leaped at the chance to come down and sign books or join another author in discussion.

So when I heard that Michael’s latest book featured Nick Carraway of THE GREAT GATSBY and that it would be released this month, I knew it had to be the first pick for our club. Nick is such a fascinating protagonist that he had almost slid into narrative archetype: the supposedly detached but hopelessly involved observer. By turning the lens back on Nick, Michael reveals a damaged and searching soul. From the trenches of France to the saloons of New Orleans, Nick becomes an avatar of Fitzgerald’s Lost Generation.

Don’t just take my word for it. Take a look at some of the reviews:

In all the ways that really matter, Nick is an exemplary novel. Smith delivers a moving, full-bodied depiction of a man who has been knocked loose from his moorings and is trying to claw back into his own life.

• Ben Fountain, New York Times Book Review

He gives us Nick Carraway’s backstory with an unvarnished depth of experience because the reader deserves it, and it’s what Farris Smith does best ... Its impact is profound, its resonance subterranean ... Once you dive into Nick, you’ll be held captive. Once you attune yourself to the rhythm of Farris Smith’s voice, you’ll follow him anywhere.

• Claire Fullerton, The New York Journal of Books

I hope that someday soon I can show my friend around Newport and our new store. I’d like to bring him to Rosecliff and The Marble House, where Sam Waterston portrayed Nick in the 1974 film adaptation of THE GREAT GATSBY. I’d like to show him the whisky selections at The Wharf and Busker’s. But most of all, I’d like to introduce him to legions of new fans who first met him through NICK. It’ll be like old times.