NICK DERISO: Frank Sinatra’s first popular peak is found not at the table of some ring-a-ding casino lounge but inside a transistor radio, as the young crooner swept to girl-crazy acclaim in the late 1940s. Appearing on a variety of showcase programs, including the too-commercial “Your Hit Parade” (1943-44, and 1947-49) then his more personal “Songs By Sinatra” (1945-47) and [...]

Seems writing a tragi-comedy about small town eccentrics — some on the very brink of despair, all of them building powerful dreams inside their heads — comes easy for someone who spent time in Louisiana. It has for John Dufresne, the former professor at Northeast Louisiana University turned accomplished author. The Southern goofy-gothic “Deep in the Shade of Paradise” is [...]