professor of English at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where he directs the MFA program. He received an MA in creative writing from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and a PhD in American literature and creative writing from the University of Cincinnati. His novels include The Request, Layover, Somebody’s Daughter, Bring Her Home, Since She Went Away, Somebody I Used to Know, The Forgotten Girl, Never Come Back, The Hiding Place, and Cemetery Girl.
His new novel is Try Not to Breathe.
At CrimeReads Bell tagged five great books about domineering parents, including:
A THOUSAND ACRES by Jane SmileyRead about another entry on the list.
It’s possible you tried your darnedest to avoid reading King Lear in high school or college. Or you opted for the Cliff’s Notes or the Wikipedia summary. But don’t fall asleep on Smiley’s Pulitzer-prize winning retelling, which features everything from the original play and then some. Abuse, poisoning, murder, blinding—and all of it set on a farm in Iowa instead of a crumbling kingdom in England. It’s a literary novel, yes, but with action and pages that fly by like a thriller. And it features a father who really, really shouldn’t get any gifts on Father’s Day.
A Thousand Acres is among Cressida Connolly's top ten novels about inheritance, Alison Espach's ten best novels featuring sisters, Renée Branum's seven novels about family curses, Lois Leveen's five novels that riff on—and rip off—Shakespeare, Stacey Swann's seven novels about family members making each other miserable, Robert McCrum's ten top Shakespearean books, Rachel Mans McKenny's eleven books about midwesterners who aren’t trying to be nice, Hannah Beckerman's top ten toxic families in fiction, Brian Boone's five books that offer a brand new take on pre-existing works, Edward Docx's top ten Shakespearean stories in modern fiction, Emma Donoghue's six best books, Anne Tyler's six favorite books, Sally O'Reilly ten top novels inspired by Shakespeare, Alexia Nader's nine favorite books about unhappy families, and John Mullan's top ten twice-told tales.
--Marshal Zeringue
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