N.C. Events: Nic Brown at The Regulator

This weekend’s events feature a couple of authors already profiled on this site — both on Friday, July 10. Laura Brodie (interviewed earlier this week) brings her debut novel, The Widow’s Season, to Quail Ridge Books that night, and across the Triangle, Ed Southern (interviewed here) talks about his new book, Sports in the Carolinas: From Death Valley to Tobacco Road, at McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington Village.

newcoverBut it’s a third author that night who deserves mention here: Nic Brown, riding a small wave of complimentary reviews toward his signing at Durham’s Regulator Bookshop. Brown’s debut short story collection, Floodmarkers, is set on the day Hurricane Hugo hit the Carolina coastline and follows the storm’s impact on the residents of fictional Lystra, N.C. — “a vivid portrait of life in one small, Southern town,” wrote The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, concluding that “At just 172 pages, Floodmarkers can be read in less than the day it took Hurricane Hugo to pass over Lystra. But thanks to its author’s skill, its emotional storm surge will linger long after the rain has passed.” And even a mixed review in The News and Observer, while perhaps over-emphasizing a comparison between Brown and Clyde Edgerton, finds much to admire; on the plus-side in that comparison, the review notes that “Brown writes in the raggedy voice of his raggedy characters, injecting his stories with a bracing directness that Edgerton, deity of the turn of phrase, sometimes lacks.” (And for some quick story-behind-the-almost-story, check out Brown’s playlist for the New York Times book blog, where he notes that Springsteen’s “Stolen Car” inspired the first story for Floodmarkers, a story ultimately left on the cutting-room floor.)

Brown’s reading begins at The Regulator at 7 p.m. on Friday. For a complete schedule of upcoming events, check out the MetroBooks calendar here.

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