Author Archives: micahfolloway

Inside Chat with Kevin Gibson

If you are familiar with the New York Times Book Review, you may have seen the section where authors and social figures are interviewed about current events or newly released books. Back in April 2021, I had the opportunity to interview Kevin Gibson, a Louisville author and resident. You may remember his contributions to the LEO Magazine years ago talking about food and beer culture in the community or may have checked out one of his published works at the library. Here is my inside chat with Mr. Gibson. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Could you tell everyone a little about yourself?

I am a nerd who loves things like Batman and Star Wars but who also loves sports (especially the Green Bay Packers) and history. I’m very social and tend to make friends easily, yet I am also introverted and enjoy “decompressing” by spending time alone and/or with my dog, Atticus. I also love tacos and sushi.

Growing up, did you know you were going to be an author? Who encouraged you to pursue this profession?

I first wanted to be a comic book artist. I also had a brief time when I thought I wanted to be a Hollywood stunt man. But when I was in the fifth grade, a local TV journalist came to my class to talk to us about journalism. We did a mock news broadcast and I was given the job of being the sports copywriter. I was hooked for good on the idea of being a writer.

How did you first get into writing and what inspired you to write about specific topics?

I took my first journalism class as a sophomore in high school and never looked back, becoming an active member of the school newspaper staff, then going to college for journalism and English. I have kind of gone through phases, and I think this goes back to my wide variety of interests and passions; my focus was to become a sports writer, which is where I started. After a few years of covering sports, I realized it was starting to burn me out on sports, which was something I didn’t want to ruin as a pastime, you know? I ended up writing film reviews, music reviews, restaurant reviews and more feature/people-oriented stuff from there. I also spent a few years trying my hand at horror fiction, which was a passion for me back in the late 1980s and through the 1990s. But I had very little success getting my creative writing into magazines, so that eventually fell by the wayside.

What kind of reader were you as a child? Did you have a favorite author or books that stuck with you the most?

I read a lot of comic books – sorry, graphic novels – but also read the usual stuff. My favorite book from childhood was Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. It really fed my imagination and showed me a story can really go anywhere you want it to. Later, I went through my sci-fi/fantasy phase (Piers Anthony, anyone?), and I remember reading several books about dogs during my tween years – I have always loved dogs, and love stories when they are cast as the hero. I’m sentimental that way.

What is one thing you enjoy the most about Louisville or the Kentuckiana area?

I love the feeling of intimacy juxtaposed with the many features of larger cities, like pro sports, the dining scene, the museums, the parks. Louisville certainly has its problems, but there’s always a lot to do. I also love the neighborhoods and their interesting and unique histories. And I love patronizing the local breweries. I guess that’s more than one thing, though, isn’t it?

What is your wheelhouse as a reader? Meaning what genres, tropes, themes and such grab your attention to read?

It again depends on mood or phase. I have been reading non-fiction almost exclusively in recent years, from biographies to history to books about actors or TV shows. But as noted, I went through a long stretch in which I was obsessed with horror fiction, especially short fiction. I would go to Hawley-Cooke Booksellers almost weekly to buy horror magazines like Cemetery Dance.

What are you currently reading?

Currently, I’m reading Jerry Seinfeld’s latest book, “Is This Anything?” It’s basically material he never took to stage or to the TV show, so you can just read it in his voice and it’s like you’re at a Seinfeld live show.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, has your writing been impacted in any way?

Yes, although I would never call it writer’s block – I don’t believe in writer’s block. For me, the loneliness and depression I went through when I basically had nothing left to write about – being a restaurant/night life writer in a pandemic is a non-starter, you know? – Just sapped me. Also, my mother was very ill as the pandemic began and she died last year on Mother’s Day. So much about 2020 just killed my energy, and I know I’m not alone. Thank goodness I had my current book project in front of me to look forward to. That one should come out this fall.

Do you have a favorite setting when it comes to writing and/or reading?

I can’t say that I do. I wrote most of my beer history book (“Lousville Beer: Derby City History on Draft”, 2014) at the bar at Buffalo Wild Wings in the Highlands. But my last couple of books I’ve written mostly at home on my couch. I can write anywhere, really, because once I get in “the zone,” I can block out pretty much anything. Well, except for my dog, who sometimes forces his way into my lap to get my attention. Hard to dissuade a 70-pound hound dog.

You are hosting a dinner party and can invite any 3 people regardless if they have passed away or are still living, who would you invite?

Wow. Well, Bart Starr would have to be one. He was an idol for me starting at age 9, and just seemed like such an honorable and decent man. After that, maybe John Lennon. I think it would be fascinating to hear his views on what the world has become today. And the third would be my grandfather, just because of how much I miss him every day and would love to just be with him again. I never knew I could miss someone so much until he died.

What are your top 3 restaurant in the Louisville area both past and present? If someone is going to buy you a meal what 3 restaurants would you pick and why?

These questions are really mean. Ha. I have to say one would have to be the late, great Maido on Frankfort Avenue. I love Dragon King’s Daughter, but Maido was special to me. I used to joke with Toki, the owner that I may as well just sign my paycheck over to her every week. There was also a little short-lived gem I loved called Taste of Jamaica. The owner, Ibuka (who I believe is still making food around town), was just great, and the jerk wings were the best I’ve ever had. Every meal I had there was wonderful. But currently? It goes back to mood. Some days I have to have El Mundo. The Irish Rover gets a lot of my money. Anyplace with a seafood boil, like Storming Crab (yes, I realize it’s a chain). Seviche is magnificent. I really like Jake & Elwood’s, too, and I recently tried I Love Tacos and was pretty blown away. Sorry I can’t pick three, it’s just impossible for me.

You released a book in 2014 called Louisville Beer: Derby City History on Draft and contributed to LEO Weekly a section about beer, how has the beer culture evolved to the present day? Do you see any new opportunities/businesses in a couple years?

I’m not a brewer or a business man, but breweries remained open during the pandemic, and that tells me there’s still room for growth in Louisville and the Commonwealth of Kentucky. As long as the beer is good, I think a brewery has a shot to make it. And I love that each of Louisville’s breweries seem to have found its own identity – that tells me there is still opportunity. I still am a firm believer that the breweries that will have the most staying power are the ones that serve their neighborhoods and are able to adapt. And I think the bourbon boom actually does offer opportunities for breweries here in Kentucky that might not exist elsewhere.

What can you tell folks about your book being released in the fall titled, This Used to be Louisville?

It’s a look around the city at places that we generally know as one thing but once were something else. In some cases, it’s a historical place that deserves recognition; in other cases, it’s just some random place in a random neighborhood. For instance, there’s a little Italian restaurant on Frankfort Avenue that originally was a toll house that marked the outskirts of the city at the time. It’s one of the last such toll houses from the early 19th century that still exist in Kentucky. Big picture, I wanted to look at a wide variety of buildings and places to drive home the point that so much has happened in the spaces we regularly frequent or merely drive past on our way to living our day-to-day lives.

Kevin Gibson’s published works that are available at LFPL:

100 Things to Do in Louisville Before You Die

Liberation of Crystal Hill

Louisville Beer: Derby City History on Draft

Secret Louisville: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure

Unique Eats and Eateries of Louisville

– Interview by Micah, St Matthews Branch

The Remaking by Clay McLeod Chapman

Gather round all who would hear the tale of Ella Louise Ford and her daughter Jessica, the witches of Pilot’s Creek (Kentucky). Ella Louise born into a well-to-do family but was ever the strangest of children. She used dried tobacco leaves to make charms, keep bees in jars under her bed and even talked to opossums. After a time, folks began to shun the Ford family. So, when Ella Louise became of age her mother was determined she be the grandest debutant at the dance in a beautiful gown of pink. On the night of the big dance though, Ella Louise entered with her dress in rags, covered in mud and leaves in her hair. For her long-suffering parents, it was the end; they banished her from their life.

Ella Louise went to live in the woods outside Pilot’s Creek in a small cabin where nine months later she gave birth to her daughter, Jessica. All the town’s people dubbed Ella Louise and her daughter witches but that didn’t stop them from visiting the small cabin in the dark of night for potions and herbs. A pregnant woman’s death was laid at the door of Ella Louise and Jessica. Without proof, the law could do nothing, but a small band of men thought otherwise. They drug Ella Louise and Jessica from their home and burned them alive. Separated in death, Ella Louise was buried far from her daughter deeper in the woods, while Jessica’s bones were sealed in a vault buried in the ground and surrounded by metal crosses that were meant to keep the little girl in her grave.

In 1971, Lee Ketchum, a director, who had heard the stories as a young boy, felt compelled, to retell the witches’ story in a movie. This was the curse of the town’s people of Pilot’s Creek, which they should never forget what had been done on that long-ago night in 1931; the story must live on. Rife with problems from the beginning it would also disrupt Amber’s life, the young girl who plays Jessica.

In the 1990’s, Amber, still known for playing the role of Jessica in the film “Don’t Tread on Jessica,” is appearing at comic conventions all these years later. She is offered by an ardent fan the role of Ella Louise, rather than Jessica, in a remake he wishes to shoot. Haunted during filming by Jessica and Ella Louise, their desire to be together again, can she face Pilot Creek, Ella Louise, and Jessica once more?

Filled with suspense, reading from multiple points of view, along with diverse storytelling, Clay McLeod Chapman released The Remaking as his second adult novel last October. An author of various children’s books he engages the reader to keep turning the page in the novel wondering what happens next and how all the characters fit together. If you are interested in learning more about The Remaking and Clay McLeod Chapman, I recommend checking out this episode from the Reading Glasses podcast where he was interviewed not only about his books but his reading quirks and what he enjoys reading.

Review by Micah, St Matthews Branch

The June Boys by Court Stevens

**Court Stevens, is a community outreach manager for the Warren County Public Library in Bowling Green, Kentucky**

Nestled in a rural section of Tennessee, the small town of Wildwood holds a big mystery. Every June for a decade, some of Wildwood’s children are kidnapped by the someone calling himself the Gemini Thief. The boys usually return unharmed thirteen months later…until this year. Now, four boys are taken and one has been murdered.

Where were the kids all that time? Who took them and why? Why has the Gemini Thief’s pattern changed? Several teens decide it’s about time to take charge and get some answers.

One teen, Thea Delacroix, is a cousin of one of the June Boys, Aulus McClaghen. Thea, out on a ride with her boyfriend Nick, comes upon a crime scene with a dead body. The victim has a keychain in the shape of a castle exactly like the one Thea carries. Could this be a link to Thea herself? Is it a coincidence that Thea’s father is in the process of renovating a castle on the outskirts of town, or is this another connection? Is the body that of Aulus?

If tales of suspense grabs your attention or if you just like solving a mystery, check out The June Boys by Court Stevens.

Review by Micah, St Matthews Branch

Growing Things and Other Stories by Paul Tremblay

Growing Things and Other Stories is the eighth book published by Paul Tremblay, winner of the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Massachusetts Book awards. Growing Things is a page-turning collection of nineteen short stories with strong character development and psychological suspense. Tremblay is acclaimed for his previous work, the bestselling The Cabin at the End of the World.

While all the stories are new, some blend past moments or use characters from Tremblay’s previous works with the current tale. I identified with several of the protagonists throughout. The piece which I enjoyed most is called “Her Red Right Hand,” which pays homage to popular comic book and movie character Hellboy. At the end of the collection, he has a list of notes discussing the thought process coming up with each story.

This particular book reminds me of Stephen King‘s works with a little more thought-provoking “what if” scenarios. I appreciate how Tremblay makes me want to read more and more until no end. I recommend this book for anyone who is looking for a good read during the fall season, specifically Halloween or Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead).

Tremblay has just released his latest novel, a tale about a rapidly-spreading disease, called Survivor Song, which seems eerily on point for the current pandemic. It was released on July 7, 2020.

For similar reads, I suggest the following titles:
• Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King
• Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk
• Full Throttle by Joe Hill

Review by Micah, St Matthews Branch

Editor’s Note: We have a review of Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts by Calliope Woods.

An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good by Helen Tursten

I recently finished a collection of stories by the Swedish author Helene Tursten called An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good. The book contains five short stories about a the life of a very elderly matron, Maud, and how she deals with people who step into her sphere. These stories got my attention with their dark humor, mystery, and insight into how other cultures look at life (and murder) in a more raw and crude manner.

The first story, An Elderly Lady Has Accommodation Problems, introduces Maud in her apartment when a young art graduate. Jasmin is seeking to take over Maud’s apartment because of its roomier size and prettier view of the skyline. When Maud gets sense of the young lady becoming too friendly, things begin to change. After multiple visits to see Maud and her dwelling, Jasmin invites Maud to come look at her apartment decorated with phalluses in multiple shapes and sizes. Read on.

In An Elderly Lady on Her Travels, Maud visits Sardinia to unwind and take care of family. While there, she reminisces about various excursions to Cairo and the South Pole. In this one story you come to understand how Maud continues to be the one family member who takes care of others before herself. She even does so through many challenges, such as taking care of her mentally ill sister.

Other tales include a tale of Christmastime in Sweden with a twist of mystery when she hears loud voices next door and learns of an “accident” to her neighbor. Maud senses there is a bigger story behind the accident than what was told and is determined to get to the real truth.

Translated from Swedish by Marlaine Delargy

– Review by Micah, St Matthews Library

Freefall by Jessica Barry

What happened? He’s dead. His face is gone. The plane looks like a crushed tin can. A short business trip turned into a coffin for him and stranded her in a rocky mountain wilderness. With an injured leg, bruises, and sprains, Allison Carpenter had to gather what she could to survive.

Somnublaze, an antidepressant developed by the Prexaline Company, had been facing some scrutiny for its questionable results. Ben, Allison’s fiancé, had been a chief executive of the company. Now he was dead, the plane wrecked, and Allison thought to be dead as well. Was the plane crash an accident or had someone wanted both Ben and Allison out of the way permanently? As Allison made her way down to a distant water hole, Ben’s words of warning came back to her, “if he thinks you’re on to him he will come after you. Be prepared to run.”

Maggie had been making bread when she got the news that the plane Allison was on had crashed in the Colorado mountains, her daughter presumed dead. Allison and Maggie hadn’t spoken in more than two years, but she wouldn’t accept that her daughter was dead. Distrusting others to find her daughter, Maggie decided that she was going to undertake a search.

Learning more about the company her daughter and Ben worked for, Maggie questions whether the plane crash was indeed an accident or meant to silence the two of them. She reaches out to possible contacts that might have some insight into what had happened, even making a stop at Prexaline to learn more. She won’t believe her daughter is dead. Maggie has let their estrangement go too long so she needed to find Allison and bring her home again.

The story plays out in alternating voices, Allison and Maggie, as author Jessica Barry takes us back through the past to the present. Allison isn’t a clean wholesome character, but she has a strength she’ll need to survive and reunite with her mother. Maggie hasn’t always made good choices either.

The story begins with action, is filled with suspense, rocky adventures, and enough mystery to keep you looking over your shoulder until the end. As this is Barry’s debut thriller novel, she sets the tone for what I hope to be more book releases in the future.

Rumor has it Freefall may be headed for the big screen.

Micah Followay – St. Matthews

The Little Shop of Found Things

Have you ever looked at an old house, an ancient tree, or a piece of antique jewelry, and wished it could share what it has seen through the years? As a young child, Xanthe found that when sometimes she touched an old piece, she would become aware of its history.

Xanthe and her severely arthritic mother, Flora, had recently purchased an old antique shop. One day while adding stock, Xanthe came across a silver chatelaine (a set of short chains attached to a woman’s belt, used for carrying keys or other items) that spoke to her very powerfully. It not only had a story attached but the vengeful spirit of Margaret Merton. Margaret would stop at nothing, even murder, to get Xanthe to do her bidding.

So begins Xanthe’s mysterious adventure of time travel, injustice, and a romance that will span the centuries.

In 1605, a servant girl named Alice was accused of being a thief and had been hanged. Using the silver chatelaine, Margaret sends Xanthe back in time so she can rescue Alice. While in the past, Xanthe also meets a grave young architect, Samuel Appleby, to whom she is strongly attracted, who helps her in her mission. By saving Alice from the hangman’s noose, Xanthe knew she was already risking the future but what choice did she have? Margaret’s spirit was in control and Xanthe would be trapped in the past if she didn’t prevent Alice from dying. Xanthe needs to return to her own time, knowing Flora might die without her help.

Xanthe is a quirky outspoken young woman whose vintage clothing, Doc Martens, compassion for others, witty sense of humor make her quite a character. The kind of person you’d want to travel back in time with on this adventure. Flora, her mother is a loving, smart woman who does not let her ailments and arthritic pain stop her from working and becoming a part of their new situation in Marlborough. Samuel is a renaissance man, who surprisingly overcomes his caution to befriend Xanthe who’s fighting for justice in an unjust time.

The second installment of the series, The Secrets of the Chocolate
House, is due to hit the streets on October 22, 2019.

Available Formats: Book & Ebook

Review by Micah, St Matthews

Bearskin by James A McLaughlin

Wherever I go, so goes a book I am currently reading. For this reason, booklists have become part of my search of good reads. Many lists marketed by publishers focus on popular fiction and well-known authors; it was a bit of a surprise when I came across James A. McLaughlin’s debut; the gritty novel, Bearskin.

Rice Moore is on the run. After barely escaping with his life from an Arizona prison, he took a job as a Wildlife Protection officer. Tucked away on a forest preserve in Virginia’s Appalachian Plateau, it seemed like a good place to lay low while he hid from men in a Mexican cartel, until the day a mushroom forager led him to a mutilated bear carcass. Poachers. Now the hunt was on, and Rice would have to leave his mountain sanctuary to go in search of the killers. And this is just the beginning.

Rice gets help in his pursuit of the poachers from his predecessor, Sara Birkeland. In his pursuit of the poachers, he draws too much attention to himself. There are clashes with the locals, the police are looking at him and now he finds himself fighting with drug runners instead of running with them.

This action-packed, gritty tale starts out as a man trying to put his life back together after prison but finds you can’t always run from your past and doing the right thing may be harder than just looking the other way. Told in third person, there are flashbacks that help the reader get a better understanding of this man who refuses to back down. McLaughlin’s words and story draw the reader in, with life in Appalachia in all its tough, beautiful, rugged, dangerous glory. Readers looking for a rocky adventure, tough terrain, and heroes with flaws will be drawn in and will stay to find out who will prevail.

Format Available: Book & Downloadable Ebook

Review by Micah, St Matthews

Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading And Writing, Edited by Stephanie Stokes Oliver

Some time ago, a friend and I were discussing what it might be like to lack the ability to read and write. How many people today lack the wherewithal to decipher the black squiggly lines and put meaning to the words? Many of us cannot remember a time before we couldn’t read.

For a moment, place yourself in a foreign country that displays signs, names of streets, buildings and warnings, of which none are in English. How will you find your way around or locate some place to eat or sleep?

Step for a time into the shoes of those whose rights were stolen, particularly the right to read. How would you feel? Frustrated? Powerless?

Be thankful that you have the ability to read and understand the essays edited by Stephanie Stokes Oliver and walk in the footsteps of those who suffered, struggled and overcame great difficulty to learn something you were given before you could miss it, knowledge of the written word.

Stephanie Stokes Oliver presents the book in three parts with writers of the various time periods; The Peril (1800-1900), The Power (1900-1968) and The Pleasure (1968-2017). This essay anthology follows the journeys of a multitude of African-Americans throughout history from Frederick Douglass to former president Barrack Obama on the importance of the ability to read and write. As you read each essay, you see how notable people lived their lives with a burning passion, the voracious need to decipher the written word, to express themselves in writing, to make a better life for themselves.

In The Peril, the reader will meet people like Solomon Northup. In his memoir, 12 Years as a Slave, Mr. Northup writes of his desperation to get a letter to a dear friend. He painstakingly boiled white maple bark to create the ink and plucked the wing of duck to use as the pen.

Did the letter reach its intended reader? You will have to read Black Ink to learn the answer.

The largest portion of essays are in The Power, a time period which includes comments from people like Maya Angelou. Angelou credits Ms. Flowers, who gave her lessons in life starting with reading, in part for her ability to read. They shared classic books, such as A Tale of Two Cities, and after a time Ms. Flowers gave her a book of poetry for which Angelou memorized a poem she could share, strengthening her reading skills. Why was this time period so filled with power of the written word?

In The Pleasure section, we hear about Roxane Gay* who recalls what drove her passion of reading was the desire to read the Sweet Valley High series. “I waited for new Sweet Valley High books the way other kids waited for new comics or movie releases.” What was so compelling about this series for Roxane Gay? To learn what the draw was behind this serialized storyline, read Black Ink.

My need to read this title came from the 2018 Read Harder Challenge from BookRiot.com as it fulfilled the challenge of reading an essay anthology. In my opinion, the passion, the need and the love of reading from the various time periods through the decades are at the heart of these stories. Oliver’s final summary is succinct and it drives home an important lesson for all, “Reading matters. Writing matters. People matter.” Reading is an inalienable right for everyone.

*Roxanne Gay is a regular contributor to the New York Times and released a memoir last year called Hunger.

Format Available: Book, eBook

Review by Micah, St Matthews Branch

Sourdough by Robin Sloan

“There’s a living thing, a culture. I guess it’s more American to say ‘starter.” You mix the starter with the flour along with water and salt, and it makes gas, which makes the dough rise. It gives it a certain flavor, too.” — Beoreg from Sourdough

Start with the essence of friendship, mix in culture, add a pinch of magic, flavor it with a dash of spunk, and you have the beginnings of an adventurous journey that will take the reader from big industry to big dough, the food variety.

Lois Clary is a single young woman, working in the tech industry, still a man’s world, as a software programmer in California. Life has become repetitive for her, the same task at work, then home, only to get up the next day and do it all over again. There is some small comfort in the form of two brothers who run the local restaurant and catering service. Sharing good food and pleasant company is her one bright spot in the day.

That is until the brothers must close their restaurant and return home to their home country. But the brothers have one last treat for Lois, one last delivery – a starter bag of culture for their sourdough bread. Told to, “take care of it feed it, play it music and sing to it and bake with it,” she isn’t quite sure what to do with it.

Indeed, Lois soon finds herself learning to make bread. A bread so delicious, it might even open new opportunities that could alter her future. But is the bread really good enough to sell in the mysterious underground?

Well, it has certainly caught someone’s eye and Lois better be careful or her starter won’t be all she has to lose.

(Think of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club but with farmers and local merchants).

This magical, adventurous journey Sloan has written for readers to follow along and perhaps share similar circumstances with Lois. Not to mention the potential for love, humor, and the art of questioning. After reading Sloan’s second novel, I understand how fellow readers follow particular authors, not only subsequent standalone works but also series. I’d say Sourdough sparked the beginnings of my journeys in the pursuit of upcoming and new releases of authors.

Robin Sloan, who previously wrote Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore released Sourdough in September of last year.

Formats Available: Audiobook, Book, e-Book

Reviewed by Micah, St. Matthews Branch