Chris Knight

This being Nashville, of course they claim his secret is reality, but I say it's literature. He's a writer pure and simple, schooled in the economical everyday; if he'd grown up in California instead of Kentucky, he'd have tried his hand at sitcoms. I love the way he finds a pungent trope and tops it--drives his truck to Timbuktu and then lies down on a bed of nails. The music is spare enough to signify reality, and big enough to heighten it. (Grade: A-)