Review & Giveaway: A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers by Babette Fraser Hale

A WALL OF BRIGHT DEAD FEATHERS

By Babette Fraser Hale

Publisher: Winedale Publishing

Pages: 216

Pub Date: March 1st, 2021

Categories: Short Stories / Literary Fiction

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Most are newcomers to the scenic, rolling countryside of central Texas whose charms they romanticize, even as the troubles they hoped to leave behind persist. Twelve stories highlight “the book’s recurring theme of desire—for freedom, for clarity, for autonomy, and for personal fulfillment…When women are alone, unencumbered and unbeholden to anyone, they engage in intense internal reflection and show reverence for nature—and during these scenes, Hale’s language is luminescent” (Kirkus Reviews). 

 

 

PRAISE FOR A WALL OF BRIGHT DEAD FEATHERS: 

“Hale shows a great respect for her characters and for the difficulty of their deceptively ordered existence, as well as for the problems they suffer because so much cannot be spoken.” — Francine Prose, on “Silences” 

 

“A vivid set of tales about connection to other people and to the natural world…Hale’s lovely prose shows a keen eye for detail…” 

— Kirkus Reviews

Purchase Links: 

Winedale Publishing| Brazos Bookstore | Amazon

A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers by Babette Fraser Hale is one of those books that made me take a second look at what I thought I knew and realized that while I may have had an inkling, I am definitely not an expert. Intrigued? You should be.

I have always had mixed feelings about collections of short stories. If I am feeling like a particularly lazy type of reader, I get annoyed when all of the stories don’t converge nicely into a neat little package. Other times, I revel in the author’s ability to evoke such varied and strong emotions from bits and bobs of stories that just materialized in their wonderful mind.

Because I had no clue what I was jumping into exactly, I started reading the first half of this book waiting for the connection between the stories. And once I realized that there was no connecting plot, I was able to sit back and experience the simple, yet complex, characters and be captivated by someone else’s mundane life. That might sound a little boring, but it wasn’t at all. Especially when you take into account the different time periods that Hale sweeps you away to briefly, sometimes a little too briefly. That’s always the problem with short stories, isn’t it? They very often leave you wanting more.

And just as I was accepting the idea that there was no connection between the stories, alas, I found at least one. A woman trying to appease or figure out a man (or boy) at the detriment of her own happiness. I don’t know if that was Hale’s intention, but that was my takeaway from this book. At any rate, I felt like I was reading a cautionary tale of a woman losing herself.

I recall perking up when I got to the “wall of bright dead feathers” part of the book. My brain was jumping up and down, gesticulating wildly for me to sit up and take note. I did, kind of, but I realize that the significance was lost to me until I got to the very end. I guess that taking a mental inventory of the stories when I reached the end helped me to draw my own conclusion about the meaning behind the book’s title.

So who should read this book? Definitely women. There’s a strong vibe of casting off the patriarchy mixed in with a dash of throwing caution to the wind. But I think that the stories are so deeply Texan that this book could be part of the curriculum for a southwestern literature class as well.

Babette Fraser Hale’s fiction has won the Meyerson Award from Southwest Review, a creative artist award from the Cultural Arts Council of Houston, and been recognized among the “other distinguished stories” in Best American Short Stories, 2015. Her story “Drouth” is part of the New York Public Library’s digital collection. Her nonfiction has appeared in Texas Monthly, Houston City, and the Houston Chronicle. She writes a personal essay column for the Fayette County Record.

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Review: The Black-Marketer’s Daughter by Suman Mallick

THE BLACK-MARKETER’S DAUGHTER

by

Suman Mallick

Category: Contemporary / Literary Fiction / Multicultural

Publisher: Atmosphere Press

Date of Publication: October 13, 2020

Number of Pages: 166 pages

Zuleikha arrives in the US from Lahore, Pakistan, by marriage, having trained as a pianist without ever owning a real piano. Now she finally has one-a wedding present from her husband-but nevertheless finds it difficult to get used to her new role of a suburban middle-class housewife who has an abundance of time to play it.

Haunted by the imaginary worlds of the confiscated contraband books and movies that her father trafficked in to pay for her education and her dowry, and unable to reconcile them with the expectations of the real world of her present, she ends up as the central figure in a scandal that catapults her into the public eye and plays out in equal measures in the local news and in backroom deliberations, all fueled by winds of anti-Muslim hysteria.

The Black-Marketer’s Daughter was a finalist for the Disquiet Open Borders Book Prize, and praised by the jury as a “complicated and compelling story” of our times, with two key cornerstones of the novel being the unsympathetic voice with which Mallick, almost objectively, relays catastrophic and deeply emotional events, and the unsparing eye with which he illuminates the different angles and conflicting interests at work in a complex situation. The cumulative effects, while deliberately unsettling to readers, nevertheless keeps them glued to the pages out of sheer curiosity about what will happen next.

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PRAISE FOR THE BLACK-MARKETER’S DAUGHTER

“Mallick offers an impressively realistic depiction of a woman caught between tradition, family, and her own sense of empowerment.” ~ Kirkus Reviews

“The Black-Marketer’s Daughter is a key-hole look at a few things: a mismatched marriage, the plight of immigrants in the U.S., the emotional toll of culture shock, and the brutal way Muslim women are treated, especially by men within their own community. Titling it—defining the heroine by her relationship to a man rather than as a woman in her own right—suggests how deeply ingrained that inequality can be.” ~ IndieReader Reviews

“The Black-Marketer’s Daughter is the portrait of a woman who endures violence, intimidation, xenophobia and grief, and yet refuses to be called a victim. In this slender novel, Suman Mallick deftly navigates the funhouse maze of immigrant life in contemporary America—around each corner the possibility of a delight, a terror, or a distorted reflection of oneself.” ~ Matthew Valentine, Winner, Montana Prize for Fiction; Lecturer, University of Texas at Austin

The Black-Marketer’s Daughter by Suman Mallick is the type of book that surprised me in every good way imaginable. I purposefully do not read other reviews or blurbs on books that I intend to review so that my viewpoint is entirely my own. It is only after I read the last page and sat for several minutes absorbing the story and my feelings about it that I allowed myself to know more about the book and its author. I was shocked to find out that Mallick was a man.

I know that sounds sexist or something but hear me out. In most books written by men from the perspective of a woman, the woman is usually excessively female in some way. She’s too emotional, too into her looks; name it, she’s got it. But Zuleikha is this beautifully balanced woman who is aware of her surroundings and her previous misconceptions, and makes the most of her situation. Perhaps because of her upbringing with access to “radical” literature and films, she is not your picture perfect Pakistani bride and is unapologetic about it too.

Because the scandal is not mentioned on the back cover, I will not mention it here either. But I want to praise Mallick’s ability to write about difficult situations in a way that is descriptive yet not gratuitous. His writing style is equal parts wonder and wearied, much like the protagonist. Mallick is able to introduce the magic of seeing a place for the first time in one chapter, and then clinically document the life of a housewife in another.

As a pianist myself, I enjoyed every bit of the narrative that discussed instruments, music theory, and the process of becoming a music teacher. Because the cover features a simple drawing of a piano, it made me ponder the symbolism of it. The piano is Zuleikha’s dream, first love, and comforter in the beginning. It is instrumental in the scandal and clearly becomes her path to redemption and the life she wants in the end.

Holding this slim book in my hand, I really do marvel at the depths that were reached. The emotional weight of this book made it read like a tome. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to open their eyes to the immigration experience and to the strength of a woman who comes from a culture that does not celebrate individuality and independence. This might be controversial to say, but if you have never seen the parallels between Christian and Muslim beliefs, this book will definitely bridge that gap.

Suman Mallick received his MFA from Portland State University and is the assistant managing editor of the quarterly literary magazine Under the Gum Tree. He lives in Texas.

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Blitz: River, Sing Out by James Wade

RIVER, SING OUT

BY

JAMES WADE

Categories: Contemporary / Literary Fiction

Rural Fiction / Crime Fiction / Coming-of-Age

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Date of Publication: June 8, 2021

Number of Pages: 315 pages

“And through these ages untold, the river did act as the lifeblood of all those things alongside it.”

Jonah Hargrove is celebrating his thirteenth birthday by avoiding his abusive father, when a girl named River stumbles into his yard, injured and alone. The teenager has stolen thousands of dollars’ worth of meth from her murderous, drug-dealing boyfriend, but lost it somewhere in the Neches River bottoms during her escape. Jonah agrees to help her find and sell the drugs so she can flee East Texas.

Chasing after them is John Curtis, a local drug kingpin and dog fighter, as well as River’s boyfriend, the dangerous Dakota Cade.

Each person is keeping secrets from the others—deadly secrets that will be exposed in violent fashion as all are forced to come to terms with their choices, their circumstances, and their own definition of God.

With a colorful cast of supporting characters and an unflinching violence juxtaposed against lyrical prose, River, Sing Out dives deep into the sinister world of the East Texas river bottoms, where oppressive poverty is pitted against the need to believe in something greater than the self.

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James Wade lives and writes in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Jordan. He has had twenty short stories published in various literary magazines and journals. He is the winner of the Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Contest and a finalist of the Tethered by Letters Short Fiction Contest. All Things Left Wild is his debut novel.

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Review: Why Stuff Matters by Jen Waldo

WHY STUFF MATTERS

by

JEN WALDO

  Sub-genre: Literary Fiction / Humor

Publisher: Arcadia Books

Date of Publication: June 4, 2019 (US)

Number of Pages: 212

 

When Jessica, a grieving widow, inherits an antique mall from her mother she also inherits the stallholders, an elderly, amoral, acquisitive, and paranoid collection. 

 

When one of the vendors, a wily ex-con named Roxy, shoots her ex-husband, she calls on Jessica to help bury the body and soon Jessica is embroiled in cover-ups, lies, and misdirection. Into this mix comes Lizzie, Jessica’s late husband’s twelve-year-old daughter by his first marriage, who’s been dumped on Jessica’s doorstep by the child’s self-absorbed mother and it soon becomes apparent that Lizzie is as obsessed with material possessions as Jessica’s elderly tenants. 

 

Why Stuff Matters is a compelling ode to possession, why people like things and the curious lengths they will go to keep them. Returning to her fictional Caprock, Waldo turns her wry wit on the lives of those afraid to let go.

 

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As per usual, I judged this book by its cover and immediately liked it. There’s a longstanding family joke where 3-year-old me proclaimed that my father’s favorite color was yellow (it wasn’t) and years later my college car was named Pichu because it was yellow. Hence, I really dig the color of this cover. Who knew that yellow, black, and negative white space could be visually interesting and soothing at the same time? I like the clean lines and the artistic simplicity conveyed by the hodgepodge of items: typewriter, phone (later discovered to be a tablet), baseball cards, bottles, urn, gun, suitcase, band instruments, safe, and bicycle. My second or third thought was that either the person in this story has a strange style of decorating or it takes place in a pawnshop.

I was wrong, but only just. The main character, Jessica, does have a strange style of decorating, but only because she doesn’t really care. And there are a few pawnshops that do business within the antique mall that Jessica inherits from her mother who passes away. Bit by bit, you get to know Jessica and why she acts the way she does. The slow reveal reminds me of cooking a stew. You can’t rush it or your protein will come out too tough. You have to keep it low and slow so that everything comes out tender and full of flavor. Well, Jessica is still pretty tough by the end of this book, but I would imagine she would be like beef jerky in a thin tomato base if she didn’t get to control the flow of things.

This is one of those books where I didn’t necessarily like all of the characters, but they were all very real to me. Waldo has a no-nonsense style of writing that never made me question her perspective on things. There were no games and the mystery had low stakes, but I was still eager to read on and find out what happened next. While Jessica is able to predict everyone’s next move or thought, I was taken by surprise many times. Not huge, ‘whoa, what was that?!’ kind of surprise, but a thoughtful, ‘wow, I didn’t see that coming at all.’

And I think that’s the true beauty of this book. Nothing flashy or over the top, but real people with real issues. Hint: Try not to obsess over right or wrong. Just enjoy the ride. And although the story doesn’t really travel far, it’s an experience all the same. I could see Wes Anderson directing the movie version of this if the author wanted a lowkey vibe on the screen. If Waldo wanted a little more whimsy, then I would say get Greta Gerwig to direct. Either way, the colorful characters and understated storytelling are the perfect recipe for a cult classic. It wouldn’t even require a Breakfast Club outro for you to realize exactly Why Stuff Matters.

Jen Waldo lived in seven countries over a thirty-year period and has now settled, along with her husband, in Marble Falls, Texas. She first started writing over twenty years ago when, while living in Cairo, she had difficulty locating reading material and realized she’d have to make her own fun. She has since earned an MFA and written a number of novels. Her work has been published in The European and was shortlisted in a competition by Traveler magazine. Old Buildings in North Texas and Why Stuff Matters have been published in the UK by Arcadia Books. Jen’s fiction is set in Northwest Texas and she’s grateful to her hometown of Amarillo for providing colorful characters and a background of relentless whistling wind. 

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Notable Quotable & Giveaway: The Widow’s Watcher by Eliza Maxwell

 

THE WIDOW’S WATCHER

by

ELIZA MAXWELL

Genre: Literary Fiction
Publisher: Lake Union Press

Date of Publication: March 29, 2018

Number of Pages: 286Scroll down for the giveaway!

From Eliza Maxwell, the bestselling author of The Unremembered Girl, comes a gripping novel about the mysteries that haunt us and the twists of fate that can unravel them…

Living in the shadow of a decades-old crime that stole his children from him, reclusive Lars Jorgensen is an unlikely savior. But when a stranger walks onto the ice of a frozen Minnesota lake, her intentions are brutally clear, and the old man isn’t about to let her follow through.

Jenna Shaw didn’t ask for Lars’s help, nor does she want it. After he pulls her from the brink, however, Jenna finds her desire to give up challenged by their unlikely friendship. In Jenna, Lars recognizes his last chance for redemption. And in her quest to solve the mysteries of Lars’s past and bring him closure, Jenna may find the way out of her own darkness. 

But the truth that waits threatens to shatter it all. When secrets are surrendered and lies are laid bare, Jenna and Lars may find that accepting the past isn’t their greatest challenge. Can they afford the heartbreaking price of forgiveness?

PRAISE FOR THE WIDOW’S WATCHER:

“There was a moment I had to tell myself that this is just a book…”

– Goodreads reviewer

“A well-paced story of healing, forgiveness and tragedy, with enough unexpected twists to keep readers guessing.”

— Amber Cowie, author of Rapid Falls

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Eliza Maxwell lives in Texas with her ever-patient husband and two kids. She’s an artist and writer, an introvert and a British cop drama addict. She loves nothing more than to hear from readers.

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Review & Giveaway: Aransas Morning by Jeff Hampton

ARANSAS MORNING

by

JEFF HAMPTON

  Genre: Literary Fiction / Family Life

Date of Publication: September 22, 2017

Number of Pages: 304

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When Sam Barnes’ high-flying life in Dallas falls apart, he flees to the coastal town of Port Aransas, Texas and fades into the life of a reclusive beach bum. But things start to change when he meets Dave, a young widower working through his own loss; Shelly, owner of the Dream Bean coffee shop; Bo, a crusty old shrimper; and Allie, Bo’s free-spirited daughter. Together they are tested and forced to confront their own issues. In doing so they discover family and community.

PRAISE FOR ARANSAS MORNING:

“Engrossing characters that keep doing unexpected things. Strong sense of place along the Texas coast and deep knowledge of the culture. This book is about relationships and how ‘family’ and ‘community’ might be redefined.”

“In this heartwarming book, Jeff Hampton took me to a place I’ve never been and captured me with his delightful characters, seaside landscape, and deft use of words to portray a small group of people who came together to create and run the Dream Bean cafe. Great summer reading.”

“I loved the characters, with their flaws and their graces. It is an honest and heart-warming story of redemption coming through community. I’m really glad I read it.”

“Really nice character development, articulating in a very comfortable and readable style the messy, complex, joyous and hopeful ways we build, break and nurture ‘community.’”

“Very quickly in the story, the characters became like friends. The book is engaging and held my interest.”

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For me, characters carry a book. If I don’t care about the characters or find them impossible to believe, I can’t read more than a few chapters. Hampton’s characters pulled me in; hook, line, and sinker. And there was even a beautiful pace in which each new character came along and the narrative followed them a bit.

Sam Barnes is a beatdown man who just bums around the beach. He works the odd job so he can eat canned soup in his tin can of a trailer home. Locals know who he is, but nobody really knows him. In retrospect, Sam asking a man who is staring out at the water what he sees is a bit out of character. But it’s this interaction that changes everyone’s lives.

When Hampton follows a character, he seems to write in their voice yet maintains that third person perspective. The tone shifts are truly remarkable. When we’re with Sam, sentences are short and details are sparse. Shelly’s first chapter is descriptive and the language flows. Dave’s chapter talks about the present but constantly circles back to Debby, his wife who passed away a year prior. When Sam collides with Dave, which rolls them toward Shelly, everything is set into motion. As the book progresses, it feels like a single voice has taken over the narrative; either Hampton’s alone, or all of the characters as a collective.

I found it sad that Sam was sort of a wake up call for Shelly and Dave. Neither of them wanted to end up like him, destitute and miserable, so they made big decisions to leave their old lives behind to find new ones. But happily, they wanted to share their new lives with this man who was so much more than he seemed. “He dreamed of being a king but he’d always just been a jester.” (p. 4) was a line that grabbed me.

It was amazing to watch such strong characters with fierce opinions and habits to come together and achieve a common goal. Who could foresee that this strength and ferocity would transform into loyalty, trust, friendship, and love? And I think one of the big lessons of the book is that you have to forgive yourself once you’ve already been forgiven by others. Other gems I have taken away are the importance of living your best life, handling business matters with integrity and respect, and marching to the beat of your own drum.

My only critique is that I wish Hampton didn’t spell out situations so explicitly at times. He literally tells us about a jealousy that’s not romance based- it’s pretty obvious. When there is some friction between two of the main characters, he tells us why they’re acting cold to each other when we could already glean that from the previous scene.

I highly recommend this book to people who love a good redemption or personal transformation story. I am glad to hear that there will be an Aransas Evening coming soon. I look forward to reading it.

During a 35-year career in journalism and communications, Jeff Hampton has covered and written about topics ranging from business and finance to history and faith. His bylines have appeared in publications ranging from The Dallas Morning News to The New York Times.

He attended Baylor University where he majored in journalism and was editor of the Baylor Lariat campus newspaper. He began his professional career at the Waco Tribune-Herald and has written for newspapers, magazines, businesses, non-profit organizations and government agencies.

Hampton has based his life and career in Texas where his interest in observing the people around him has led him to write essays, short stories, and novels that explore relationships and communities in their many forms.

Aransas Morning is his fifth book, following Grandpa Jack, When the Light Returned to Main Street, Jonah Prophet and The Snowman Uprising on Hickory Lane.

Watch for Aransas Evening, a sequel to Aransas Morning, in 2018. 

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Promo: Nowhere Near by Teddy Jones

NOWHERE NEAR

Stories
by

Teddy Jones

  Genre: Short Stories / Literary Fiction / West Texas

Publisher: Midtown Publishing, Inc.

Date of Publication: May11, 2017

Number of Pages: 206

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Characters in the eleven stories in Nowhere Near act in ways that some might call “divinest madness.” Some of them have been pushed near their limits by years of stress. Others mourn and grieve and discover feelings they can’t admit aloud. A sense of duty drives another to believe in aliens, at least for a while. Some of their behavior is simply laughable, other flirts with death, and the rest ranges from dangerous to near heroic. These characters vary widely, yet all have in common that they live in or come from West Texas, where spaces are wider and tolerance for strangeness seems just a bit greater. Whether readers agree these characters are nowhere near crazy, they may admit they all are doing what humans do—what makes sense to them at the time.

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Praise for Nowhere Near:

“Teddy Jones writes about plainspoken people whose lives are entangled and wrought and marked by routine—routines they cherish, routines they wish to escape—and who glimpse, now and again, a sense of something beyond their ability to reason. The stories in Nowhere Near are deep, honest, and unsentimental, and they pierce you to the bone.—Robert Boswell, author of Tumbledown & The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards

“There’s so much goodness in these stories, the kind of goodness that grows out of characters who endure hard lessons leading them to revelations and deep understanding. You’ll find real people here, with real heartaches and mistakes and regrets. With language as true as music, a steady and perceptive eye, and at times a blazing humor, Teddy Jones creates fully imagined and realized worlds. Subtly, she makes strangeness ordinary and the ordinary strange. You will recognize the people in this book the way you recognize your own neighbors and friends and co-workers and family: full of annoying quirks and surprises and, finally, a saving grace.”—Eleanor Morse, author of White Dog Fell From the Sky

“Teddy Jones is the real deal. With her characteristic wit and goodhearted characters, Jones draws a bead on West Texas life as it’s currently lived. Her precise ear for the rhythms of life and language guides the reader confidently from dry land farming to the double life of dreams and secrets. These stories stuck with me and left me wanting more.” –Summer Wood, author of Raising Wrecker

Teddy Jones has been a nurse, nurse practitioner, university professor, college dean, and occasional farmhand. She grew up in a small north Texas town, Iowa Park, and gained college degrees in nursing at Incarnate Word and University of Texas, a Ph.D. in Education at University of Texas at Austin, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University. She held nursing, teaching, and administrative positions in Austin, Denver, and Lubbock and as a family nurse practitioner in Texas and New Mexico. Writing fiction was her “when I know enough and have the time” dream all those years. Now she and her husband live near Friona, in the Texas Panhandle, where her husband farms and she writes full time.

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5/15	Review	Books in the Garden
5/16	Excerpt	The Page Unbound
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5/18	Review	Reading By Moonlight
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Author Interview 2: Foy: On the Road to Lost by Gordon Atkinson

FOY:ON THE ROAD
TO LOST

by

GORDON ATKINSON

  Genre: Literary Fiction

Publisher: Material Media LLC
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Date of Publication: March 1, 2017

Number of Pages: 194

 

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Gordon Atkinson, of the popular blog RealLivePreacher, brings us Foy, a recently- divorced, recently-resigned pastor in the midst of redefining personal meaning. As Foy travels to New Orleans, hoping to find a new identity separate from the church, he keenly observes the everyday, rendering ordinary moments unexpectedly significant. Atkinson’s own background as a preacher and blogger inspires Foy’s confessional voice, the voice which characterizes this story about how our own experiences impact the universal search for meaning. 

 ***

 

PRAISE FOR FOY: ON THE ROAD TO LOST:

“If the magnitude of difference between the stars and humankind is the purest of religions, reminding us of our insignificance (so thinks Foy), then that magnitude is collapsed in the hands of Atkinson, whose words elevate the most insignificant of objects, acts, and characters to startling heights. A key shifted on a desk, a communion cup offered to an old woman despite a philosophical mismatch, a baby’s bottle first ignored and then retrieved for a frazzled stranger on a bus. Each commands, each arrests, each persists. And we suddenly remember that what we create with mere words can be as lasting as the luminaries.”

— L.L. Barkat, author of Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing, twice named a best book of 2011

“Few writers can match Gordon Atkinson’s ability to tell stories about the sacred in our everyday lives. Foy is a work of power, beauty, and clarity–I saw myself and the world more clearly after reading it. I think you will too.”

— Greg Garrett, author of The Prodigal and Entertaining Judgment

“I really, really like Gordon Atkinson’s Foy. I like the character Foy himself. He’s Everyman and he’s me and he’s Gordon, all at the same time. Nice trick. I like Gordon’s writing — straightforward, but with a simple elegance. But what I really like is the no-holds-barred honesty. This feels real because it is real. Foy at his worst, Foy at his best, Foy at his most wonderful/awful. It’s an on-going series, just like life. I look forward to the next chapter.”

— Robert F. Darden, author of Nothing but Love in God’s Water, Volume II: Black Sacred Music from Sit-Ins to Resurrection City

New Novel by Gordon Atkinson Foy: On the Road to Lost, to be released March 1 from Material Media on Vimeo.

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Gordon Atkinson Author Interview 2

Your writing contains beautiful messages. Does the story come first, or the underlying message/theme?

Story first or the beginning idea for an essay. Most of the time I don’t know where things are going to end up when I begin and am as surprised as anyone when I’m finished. This is especially true of fiction, where I consciously seek to avoid directing the writing in hopes of pulling from the unconscious, which is where all the best stories live.

Do you have any kind of ritual you engage in before you write or during the writing process?

The first task is to get every idea down on paper, even if you write it on a napkin. And save those. The next step is to start a piece and gush without thinking onto the paper. In step two one hopes to capture magic from the unconscious. The third thing is to organize and think through the structure of the piece. This is the one I enjoy the least. The last thing is polishing and it’s more like creating poetry. You don’t have to think about structure anymore. Just listen to the sounds of your words and play with them until they sound right.

How much of Foy is based on your own life? Did some of these stories actually happen to you?

I tore my life down into little blocks and used those blocks to build a new life for Foy. There are a few stories that are very close to something that happened to me. Others are based on events from my life but are skewed or lead the character in the opposite direction that I went. And a good bit of Foy is just made up. I’d say Foy resembles me if my life had turned out differently.

Foy has daughters. Will we meet them at some point?

Yes. There are currently two stories that feature his daughters. They just aren’t in volume one. And I have a story planned for Foy’s mother and father. So in the future we should learn a little more about his family.

Foy sure curses a lot for a minister. Is that realistic?

Most ministers know that the scriptures have nothing to say about coarse language, if that language isn’t being used to hurt people. But ministers also have a certain reputation to uphold. So most of them watch their language in public. But I promise you, many of them cut loose when they can do so safely.

What does “On the road to lost” mean?

It is a play on words based on something my wife said when we left the ministry. She said “I once was found but now I’m lost, could see but now I’m blind.” You might recognize that as a distortion of words from the song “Amazing Grace.” I liked what she said. It describes many people who grew up in insular religious communities. It’s as if never having been lost, their journeys inevitably lead them into the wilderness. That’s Foy. He was safe and secure inside the mythic religious world  of Fort Davis. He takes a journey into the larger world, where he feels lost indeed.

You mention a volume two at the end of the book. Have you started it?

I have, and I am well on the way. There are forty-one stories so far. There are only twenty-five in this volume.

How has Texas influenced your writing?

I don’t know. But it makes sense to me that I wouldn’t know. Your own culture is invisible to you. Its influence is always strong but rarely recognized. I’ve always lived in Texas. My family is from Livingston. I was born in Fort Worth. I spent my early years in El Paso and my adolescence in Houston. I graduated from Katy High School and went to college in Waco. When I was in seminary my wife and I lived in a mobile home in Burleson. And I’ve been in San Antonio for almost thirty years.

I assume, therefore, that the scent of Texas rises gently from out of every sentence I write.

 

Atkinson is the author of the books RealLivePreacher.com (Wm. B. Eerdmans), Turtles All the Way Down, and A Christmas Story You’ve Never Heard.  He was a contributor for the magazine Christian Century and founding editor for the High Calling website, which brought together hundreds of independent writers and featured their work. 

His writing career started on Salon where he was among the most read bloggers on the site.  One of his essays was chosen to be included in The Best Christian Writing 2004 (Jossey-Bass) and his book RealLivePreacher.com won the Independent Publisher Book Award in the creative non-fiction category.

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3/1	Video Guest Post 1	Hall Ways Blog
3/2	Review	Momma On The Rocks
3/3	Excerpt 1	CGB Blog Tours
3/4	Video Guest Post 2	Syd Savvy
3/5	Review	StoreyBook Reviews
3/6	Author Interview 1	Kara The Redhead
3/7	Review	Forgotten Winds
3/8	Video Guest Post 3	The Page Unbound
3/9	Excerpt 2	My Book Fix Blog
3/10	Review	Margie’s Must Reads
3/11	Video Guest Post 4	Chapter Break Book Blog
3/12	Author Interview 2	Missus Gonzo
3/13	Review	Book Chase
3/14	Video Guest Post 5	Texas Book Lover
3/15	Review	Reading By Moonlight

 

 

 

 

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Review: Whisper Hollow by Chris Cander

WHISPER HOLLOW

 

by

 

Chris Cander

Genre: Literary Fiction / Friendship

Publisher: Other Press

Date of Publication: March 17, 2016

Number of Pages: 400

 

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Set in a small coal-mining town, Whisper Hollow is full of secrets, love, and betrayal, where Catholicism casts a long shadow and three courageous women make choices that will challenge our own moral convictions.

            One morning in Verra, a town nestled into the hillsides of West Virginia, the young Myrthen Bergmann is playing tug-of-war with her twin, when her sister is killed. Unable to accept her own guilt, Myrthen excludes herself from all forms of friendship and affection and begins a twisted, haunted life dedicated to God. Meanwhile, her neighbor Alta Krol longs to be an artist even as her days are taken up caring for her widowed father and siblings. Everything changes when Myrthen marries the man Alta loves. Fourteen years later, we meet Lidia, a teenage girl in the same town, and her precocious son, Gabriel. When Gabriel starts telling eerily prescient stories that hint at Verra’s long-buried secrets, it’s not long before the townspeople begin to suspect that the boy harbors evil spirits—an irresistible state of affairs for Myrthen and her obsession with salvation. Rendered in exquisite prose, Whisper Hollow is an extended reflection on guilt, redemption and the affirmation of life in this early 20th century Appalachian community.

PRAISE FOR WHISPER HOLLOW . . .

 

~Kirkus Reviews (STARRED REVIEW)

“Cander divinely delves into multiple points of view, crafting a collage of vibrant, layered characters while charting six decades of poignant, precise moments. A distinctive novel that sublimely measures the distressed though determined heartbeat of a small mountain community.”

~Shelf Awareness (STARRED REVIEW)


“Cander weaves together the stories of these varied characters across nearly five decades with skill and grace, and in her hands, Whisper Hollow grows into much more than the sum of its many parts. The result is a memorable novel about the bonds of town and family, the strength of friendships in unlikely places and the power of secrets to shape a life–or many lives–often without anyone even recognizing it.”

~Booklist

“Cander superbly envisions the town, its residents’ dynamics, and the early twentieth-century immigrant experience…[and] rewards the reader with…well-developed, believable characters whose mental fortitude and capacity to love linger in the reader’s mind long after the last page.”

~Publishers Weekly

“[Whisper Hollow] is inextricably rooted in West Virginia coal country—the rough locale that determines and intertwines [Cander’s] characters’ fates…Cander closely tracks how Myrthen’s and Alta’s romantic decisions unknowingly complicate each other’s lives in the lead-up to a tragic incident that bisects the novel…[and] admirably captures the lack of choice that men and women have in rural West Virginia.”

~Library Journal

“Spare, elegant writing by the author of 11 Stories evokes a bleak atmosphere and creates a smooth, compelling narrative… much of the prose is so outstanding, this writer is clearly gifted.  Give this literary, plot-driven novel to those who enjoy the West Virginia setting and who like a gentle handling of their tragedies.”

 

 

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Just the title, “Whisper Hollow” has an eeriness to it that lets you brace yourself for tragedy. The opening scene of two immigrants seeking a new life in America seems to ride against that feeling, but it comes back in full force when Cander tells you that there is something up with one of the 5-year-old twins conceived by those immigrants. When the twin girls fight over a rag doll, you wince in anticipation of catastrophe. And you know the “bad” twin will come out on top.

The story often jumps forward in time to another character and you’re not sure how it will all tie together. But Cander’s language is so descriptive and lovely that you don’t mind reading on for a while to see how the new storyline ties in with the last.

Alta is described as not being particularly pretty or memorable, but I was drawn to her immediately. Perhaps because I felt overlooked growing up as well. I was excited on her behalf when the object of her affection notices her, but held back a little because I sensed that things weren’t going to tie up nicely between them. In the spirit of not spoiling anything, I will leave it at that.

I’ve never really thought about just how much a single industry can mean everything to a town. The coal mines are the means by which men provide for their families, but it’s also a profession that many try to avoid because it is so perilous. And while mining was steady work for many, even more would meet their demise from black lung or accidents.

Cander doesn’t go into too much detail down in the mines, but the coal dust is almost a secondary character that is painstakingly difficult to escape. Much like guilt, it is difficult to remove from the crevices of one’s hands.

Guilt is the driving force behind so many things in this novel. Guilt of passion leads to a loveless marriage, while the guilt of infidelity keeps a different couple in a loveless marriage as well. There is plenty of guilt all around, some earned and some not. The guilt of harming others while hiding behind God and religion is the one that annoyed me the most. I know that’s not fair, but I have less patience for that sort of thing.

 I really can’t enthuse how much I enjoyed this novel without giving away something important. So let me just say that while I prefer happy endings, I am happy with this ending. I enjoyed every moment of this book. Not a word or sentence were squandered to tell such an outstanding story.

 

Chris Cander is a novelist, children’s book author, screenplay writer, and writer-in-residence for Houston-based Writers in the Schools. Her novel Whisper Hollow was selected as an Indie Next pick and nominated for the 2015 Kirkus Prize in fiction and her award-winning novel 11 Stories was included in Kirkus’s best indie general fiction of 2013. Her children’s book The Word Burglar received the silver 2014 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards for Reading Skills & Literacy. Her animated feature film Germs! is currently in pre-production with Cinsesite in partnership with Comic Animations. Chris well knows that the pen is mightier than the sword, but she’s willing to wield one of those, too. A former fitness competitor and model, she currently holds a 3rd dan in taekwondo and is a certified ICSU Women’s Defensive Tactics Instructor. She is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the Author’s Guild, the Writers’ League of Texas, PEN, and MENSA.

  

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9/26	Author Interview 1	The Page Unbound
9/27	Review	Byers Editing Reviews & Blog
9/28	Video Guest Post	Texas Book Lover
9/29	Author Interview 2	Forgotten Winds
9/30	Review	Country Girl Bookaholic
10/1	Excerpt	Kara The Redhead
10/2	Promo	A Novel Reality
10/3	Review	Book Chase
10/4	Author Interview 3	Chapter Break Book Blog
10/5	Review	Missus Gonzo

 

 

 

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Guest Post: The Lark by Dana Glossbrenner

THE LARK

by

Dana Glossbrenner

Genre: Humorous Literary Fiction

Publisher: Boldface Books

Date of Publication: June 7, 2016

Number of Pages: 270

 

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You’re never too old to learn—or too young

 

Good-looking, good-hearted Charley Bristow’s the most sought-after hair stylist in five West Texas counties. He’s an expert on the dance floor and sharp at the pool tables, too—but when it comes to pick­ing cars, dogs, and women, luck hasn’t quite gone his way lately. And there’s the ever-present worry over his mother, whose own trailer-park plight he’d just as soon steer clear of. 

 

Just when he’s sworn off temptation of the female sort, an evening at the local honky-tonk drives two prime targets right into his path. Weighing the sudden wealth of options in his love life, while also searching for the right choice of wheels to suit his needs, Charley stumbles upon a long-hidden secret and an unforeseen road to re­demption. 

 

The colorful denizens of the Wild Hare Salon, Jarod’s Automotive, and Hopper’s nightclub, along with those of the Briargrove First Methodist Church and the Sulfur Gap Centennial Celebration, will two-step their way right into your heart, to music as familiar as Willie Nelson and Charley Pride. And you just might start to fall in love with an old Johnny Mercer tune, too, as Charley Bristow faces his past and embraces the challenge of his future.

 

Praise for The Lark

“Good-time Charley” Bristow is a popular twenty-something West Texas hairstylist who’s already dodged two bullets with two failed marriages (the second time, literally). . . . The Lark invites us to join Charley’s friends, the rural cosmopolitans of Sulfur Gap, and ride shotgun alongside this rogue with an honest heart . . . on a journey into his past.  Dana Glossbrenner has crafted a totally engaging quest for happiness, set it in a totally genuine contemporary Texas, and delivered up great characters for a great read.

 

— Cliff Hudder, author of Splinterville and Pretty Enough for You

 

Charley Bristow takes some things seriously–work, dancing, pool-playing, and women, but maybe not in that order. He finds the true importance of friends and family.

 

— Rick Smith, San Angelo Standard Times

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Where’d You Get Those Characters?

I began to hear the most frequently-asked question right away: “Are your characters based on anyone you know?” With my first published novel, The Lark, I gave advance reading copies to people whose opinion I value and, yes, to those who would post that valued opinion in an Amazon review when the book became available. They asked, “Where’d the characters come from?” Friends asked if they would recognize themselves in the book. And others inquired, “Where did you get the idea for Charley?”

When I first started writing short stories, I made up fictional names and told true stories. Truth is often better—and wilder—than fiction. There are remarkable situations when people say, “You can’t make this stuff up!” But I found myself working too hard to preserve the real story. The first time I wrote about a totally fictional character in a completely made-up story, my husband said, “Your writing is better when you’re not trying to fit things in to something you already know about.” I decided he was right.

Here’s how Charley, the main character in The Lark evolved. I knew a bunch of interesting ladies who work at the beauty salon I visit for haircuts and the occasional chair massage or manicure. I had written a couple of stories about women working in a salon. Someone observed, “Sounds like Steel Magnolias,” when I told her about my stories. Oh. Not too happy about my lack of originality, I decided to start a story with a young female hair stylist who marries an older man who is a drummer in a band. About thirty pages in, I began to bore myself. I was thinking, “How can I punch this up?”

I remembered a presentation by a local author at our writers’ club, in which he said, “If things feel too conventional, turn them upside down.” So Charlene became Charley, and the drummer, Lou, became an older lady. And then I decided to take off in a different direction from the plot I had in mind. The basic settings stayed the same—the nightclub (invented), the hair salon (adapted from my real one but different), and Sulfur Gap (a composite of small West Texas towns I know).

Once Charley appeared, he took on a life of his own. I knew him. Thomas Hardy said, “Character is destiny.” That’s true of real people as well as the characters writers create. Once I knew Charley, I knew what needed to happen within my world-view, which isn’t fantasy, sci-fi, or horror.

But characters don’t magically appear. When I’m formulating a story (a novel, a segment, or a short story), I start sketching. I write the character’s name in the center of a page, and then I jot down everything I know about that person and where he or she is headed in the arc of the plot. Sometimes I realize that the plot will need adjustments to fit the character, since a plot works best if it’s character-driven. Sometimes I change the character’s name.

I focus on the character’s conflicts—what the person brings into the storyline—both the baggage and the laurels. Has he or she missed out on life because of an over-developed sense of self-sacrifice? Does the character harbor a guilty secret? Is the character trying to overcome a handicap, such as being a total nerd? Has the character been hurt deeply by someone or by a stroke of fate? Who or what does the character love most? From this comes focus on motivation, which then drives the plot.

Alongside this diagram, I begin to jot notes about how the character’s segment of life that I am portraying will play out within the setting and the basic plot line.

Another helpful approach is to write a character sketch—like the old high school English assignments–Write a character sketch of Lennie in Of Mice and Men. If characters don’t come into focus, I write a description of them—discover who they are. What I describe about that character is what I will show as the plot thickens. It’s a great tool to solidify a character in my thoughts.

So this is part of the very long answer to the question, “Where’d those characters come from?”

The short answer is “My head.”

 

Dana Glossbrenner’s debut novel, The Lark, features Charley Bristow, a successful young hair stylist in a small West Texas town. His misadventures provide humor, intrigue, and catharsis, as he discovers a lost family history. Women Behind Stained Glass: West Texas Pioneers, a historical work, recounts the lives of women who helped settle the area around San Angelo, Texas.Glossbrenner taught high school and university English classes and worked as a guidance counselor. She grew up in Snyder, Texas, earned degrees from Texas Tech, Angelo State University, and Texas State University. She now lives in San Angelo, Texas.

She cites Larry McMurtry, Cormac McCarthy, and Elmer Kelton as major inspirations for writing about Texas.

 

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7/26    The Librarian Talks – Author Interview #1

 

7/27    Texas Book Lover – Excerpt #1

7/28    Reading By Moonlight — Review

7/29    It’s a Jenn World – Author Interview #2

7/30    Country Girl Bookaholic – Review

7/31    The Crazy Booksellers — Promo

8/1       Missus Gonzo – Guest Post

8/2       Byers Editing Reviews & Blog – Excerpt #2

8/3       Kara The Redhead — Review

8/4       The Page Unbound – Author Interview #3

8/5       Margie’s Must Reads — Review

8/6       Books and Broomsticks — Promo

8/7       Forgotten Winds – Excerpt #3

8/8       My Book Fix Blog – Review

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