Available July, 2026

A REPUBLIC IF YOU CAN KEEP IT: Reflections on An America in Crisis

Frye Gaillard and his Pulitzer Prize-winning coauthor Cynthia Tucker write in the shadow of the nation’s 250th birthday, reminding their readers of the noblest aspirations of the great, flawed men who gave us America. They trace the astonishing political comeback of Donald Trump between January 6, 2021 and the presidential election of 2024, and examine Wrecking Ball of the first 18 months of Trump’s second term.
As two Southern journalists, one Black and one white, they warn against the persistent failures of American citizens – across multiple generations – to grapple definitively with the contradictions that lie at the heart the nation’s history. But they find hope in the massive, nonviolent resistance that has arisen against the policies of the current administration in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago – and of course, Minneapolis.
In their epilogue, Gaillard and Tucker quote the admonition of their fellow Alabamian Joyce Vance, offered in the title of her latest book: Giving Up Is Unforgivable. But the outcome is still in doubt, and the authors end with an urgent question: Can America, with its deep divisions, preserve the shining promise of its founding? Or will this republic, now 250 years old, become something else altogether?

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NPR Great Read of 2018 & winner of F. Scott Fitzgerald Museum Literary Prize and the Alabama Authors Award

“A child of the Sixties and one of the leading civil-rights reporters of his generation, Gaillard has given us a riveting tour along the fine line between history and journalism.”

– Howell Raines, Pulitzer Prize winner, former executive editor, The New York Times

Now Available from Vanderbilt University Press

A powerful collection of conversations between a journalistic icon and some of the finest writers of our time … Nikki Giovanni, Jon Meacham, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pat Conroy, and others.

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Now Available from Rowman & Littlefield/Bloomsbury

The Literary Legacy of Jimmy Carter: Essays on the President’s Books

With these reflections on a singular American life, coeditors Mark I. West and Frye Gaillard have assembled a powerful collection of essays on the more than 30 books written by the former president. The distinguished contributors to this volume include Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Cynthia Tucker, decorated Southern historian Vernon Burton, and award-winning poet Charlotte Pence.

Now Available from University of Georgia Press

Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Finalist 

“… a true journalistic and literary gift – compelling, beautifully-crafted profiles of crusading, committed people, some more well-known than others… Even while writing about some of life’s darkest situations, Gaillard seeks and finds the best of the human spirit, the best in us. His remarkable ability to get to the core of people’s souls, to crystalize what makes them human and extract the essence of their goodness leads to a lesson for all. Heroes and Other Mortals is compelling, inspiring, affirming, relentlessly hopeful. We’ve needed this book.”

– Mark Ethridge, former Managing Editor, The Charlotte Observer