Lauren Baratz-Logsted stops by with this week’s offering:

It’s been a crap week for reading. Of the eight books I’ve read since last I was here, there’s only one worth mentioning, As Hot as It Was, You Ought to Thank Me, by Nanci Kincaid, a coming-of-age story.

In my own debut novel, The Thin Pink Line, crazy Jane Taylor, an editor bemoaning the current state of publishing submissions, says, “And then of course there were the gadzillions upon gadzillions of coming-of-age stories that kept streaming in like so many lemmings headed for the cliffs; I mean, didn’t any of those people realize that everyone who mattered had come of age by now?”

And, crazy as Jane is, not to mention acerbic, she makes a valid point: with nearly 200,000 books published each year now in the U.S., what hasn’t been done to death?

But I’m more Pollyanna than crazy Jane, so when people wanting to break into the writing business share their worries that they’ve written a mystery or a chick-lot novel or a coming-of-age story, and there are already so many – some might say too many – loose in the world, what’s the point, I tell them that so long as their voice is original, so long as they grab me by the ears and won’t let me go, it won’t matter that I’ve read what feels like a gadzillion mysteries, chick-lit novels, and coming-of-age stories, I’ll want to read theirs too.

And such is the case with As Hot as It Was, You Ought to Thank Me, by Nanci Kincaid. Told in the compelling thirteen-year-old voice of Berry Jackson, the story is about her home in Pinetta, Florida, her principal father, her brothers and sisters, odd and gun-toting neighbors, promiscuous preacher, peculiar church, a tornado and, yes, a chain gang. Variously compared to Welty and McCullers, it would be wrong to gild Kincaid’s lily by hauling out the old “Not since Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird…” when paying heed to this latest entry in the world of Southern letters. Besides, with a voice, quirky sense of humor and mature sense of poignancy all her own, Nanci Kincaid has enough lilies, thank you very much, and doesn’t need to be borrowing anyone else’s.

Off to read book 307. I’m getting there.

Note from Michelle:
I’m particularly pleased to post Lauren’s review this week, because it gives me a chance to link to one of my favorite indie bookstores, Alabama Booksmith, (run by the venerable and incredibly well-read Jake Reiss) which features Nanci on its local authors page. Her first novel, Crossing Blood, was selected by the University of Alabama Press for inclusion in its Deep South series. Being from Mobile, it’s always a pleasure to see a fellow Alabamian “do good.”

Alabama Booksmith has a great signed first editions club, which delivers signed first editions to your door at regular list price. Jake chooses the books for the club from authors who visit the store. You also get one free signed edition each year. Previous offerings have included The Kite Runner, Ava’s Man, and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Alabama Booksmith holds a special place in my heart, as I did my very first bookstore reading there back in 2001, when my story collection, The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress, was published.