The story behind my novel "Secondhand Sister"

Writers know one basic truth: fiction is a blend of the author's experiences and a good portion of dreams and imagination. 

The spark for Secondhand Sister flared as a result of a family discussion about my series of novels set in my hometown of Chattahoochee, Florida--a town with two stoplights and a state mental institution on its main thoroughfare.

I recently attended a reunion in Chattahoochee where I heard the same sentiment echoed: my birthplace was a truly unique and wonderful area to grow up. I agree.

In my first novel, The Madhatter's Guide to Chocolate, released over ten years ago, I introduced the Davis family of Bonnie Hill, three miles outside of Chattahoochee. The second novel, Up the Devil's Belly, carried them forward. Though I tried to make this family dissimilar from my own, everyone thought they were us anyway.

My brother Jimmy (some of you know him as Gabby) said, "I'm sure glad you got the brother in the books into AA and dried him up a little. People keep coming up to me on the street to say, 'we didn't know you had such a bad drinking problem until we read your sister's book.' "

We laughed. My brother, you see, is much like me in this respect: we rarely drink. One beer every now and then, when it is hot outside and the beer is really, really cold. You could probably count on one hand the number of alcoholic beverages we consume in a two-year period. But Jimmy is a good sport, and he likes to kid around as much as I do. My older sister Melody was no slacker in the humor department either. My entire family is this way. Thank goodness.

"Well," my sister Melody said, "at least she didn't kill you off at birth."

In my attempt to create pure fiction, I had deleted the middle child from the Davis family. Bless her heart.

Later, Jimmy and I discussed this. Hated to make Melody feel left out. Jimmy suggested that the middle child could have been switched at birth. It happened, back then, more often than folks wanted to admit.

That notion swirled around in my mind like the eddies in the Apalachicola River. What if....?

And the main character for Secondhand Sister, Mary-Esther Sloat, came to be. 

Mary-Esther grew up and lived most of her patchwork life in New Orleans, found out she wasn't who she thought she was, then lost her home and everything she valued in Hurricane Katrina. Homeless, hopeless, and harried, she arrived in Chattahoochee in a beat-up Chevy van, intent on locating her real family. There, she hit more obstacles. But I won't give too many spoilers....

I dedicated this book in memory of my sister Melody DeVane-Kight. She never got to read it. She passed away at age 61, the result of a brain aneurysm. The manuscript idled for a number of years until I was ready to head into deep revisions. I wrote several others in the interim. Three of the books, Mama's Comfort Food, Cathead Crazy, and Suicide Supper Club, were also set in Chattahoochee, though they spotlighted different families.

Though Mary-Esther is unlike Melody in appearance and life history, she shares some important traits: a true kindness to others and unwavering optimism, even in the face of great odds. 

This one's for Melody. Hope you can sense it, up there. You left too soon, hon. And we miss you. Terribly.

Tell Daddy and Mama and the rest of the gone-to-glory crew I send my love, and oh . . . you best save me some chocolate.

Love you.

Rhett

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Secondhand Sister is slated for release end of October, 2015. The Kindle version is already available for preorder on Amazon.

Secondhand Sister on Amazon

The Error on 99

Like my fellow writers, I understand one fundamental truth: words and characters are unruly. I start each novel or short story with a spark of inspiration, perhaps a rough plot outline. I settle down with the laptop, expecting to corral a raging herd of ideas, scenes, and dialog into 90,000 brilliant, perfect words.

(Right.)

Then the muses seize the reins and shove aside my feeble attempts at control. Should I try to pen them in, force them in directions they don’t prefer, they will shut down my literary flow like Beethoven blared at a redneck round-up.

During final editing and revisions, I have meager input. My latest Southern fiction novel, Suicide Supper Club, provided more than a handful of the muses’ “teachable moments.”

Weeks before the book went to print, I zeroed in on the final, marketable product. A talented copy editor, three beta-readers, and my critique group members helped to flush out the typos. For sure, the spelling and grammar computer-creatures miss a lot. If it’s truly a word, it is okey dokey with them. Hey, I meant to write shut and not slut—it’s only one small letter’s difference. Why quibble?

Yet no matter how many times I cull a manuscript, typos lurk. I know it. I hate it.

Final proof. I checked back one last time to make sure all of my changes stuck. I always suspect the corrections switch to their former imperfection the moment I close the file, a condition I label writer-noia.

Then, on page 99, the word popped out at me. It had snugged itself next to a correction. All of the trained eyes missed it. Even the word itself (the one I thought I had typed) was eerie: a slang term meaning “let it go!”

At first, I groused about having to redo the file. I couldn’t leave an obvious error in place. Or could I?

The lesson provided: if I could not let it pass on some level, I had missed the point. Missed life lessons have a way of repeating themselves until the thick human ego catches the subtle drift.

To note: I did not correct the Error on 99 in the Kindle version. Had to correct it in the print version. I’m too much a stickler. And that book will be on file in the Library of Congress. Besides, there are other errors hiding in there. They appear in all books.

At the same time—why let things ever be simple?—I was plowing through a difficult life transition. Things beyond my control had shifted my settled world. I struggled to find solid footing.

The Error on 99 appeared at the right moment, the right time. It even fit into the underlying theme of Suicide Supper Club.

Not everything can be controlled. Most things can’t. And left to their own, situations will work out exactly as they should.

That lesson, I understood. Thanks to the Error on 99. 

Beauty isn't everthing: Lessons from Mom's kitchen

 

 

I enjoyed lunch at local bistro recently. Like most of these small eateries, it was decorated to invoke an artsy feel: modern paintings, welcoming color palate, intimate seating, and an outdoor patio for those seasonal days when the Southern humidity stepped aside. Though I appreciated the ambiance and, after sampling the food, would return, I couldn’t help but think of the vast difference between the trendy art of food presentation and the Southern down-home style of cooking from my mom’s kitchen.

My mama didn’t worry about “pretty food.” I can’t recall a time when she actually garnished a plate with a carrot trimmed into a curlicue or used a tiny rectangular plate to center a sandwich the size of a marshmallow. No reduced sauces swirled around the roast like it had been attacked by a kid’s Spirograph. More likely, it rested in a puddle of thick gravy. And I guarantee you, the meat was bigger than a two-inch square.

She didn’t concern herself with the concepts of complex tastes or textures. Just good food, and plenty of it. Pinch of this, tad of that. Mix it till it looks right. Dig your hands into the dough and feel if it needs more moisture. Shell the peas and cook them fresh from the garden. Chill thick scarlet slices of beefsteak tomatoes, ripened on the vines. Whip up a hoecake of cornbread—no box mix—and sear it in a cast iron skillet.

Small wonder I was leery of trying my hand at cooking until I reached my late teens. My gravy turned out lumpy. The cake suffered “sad spots.” And none of my initial efforts were much to look at.

Here’s where the life lesson came in. “Don’t worry, sugar, if your cake has a crack clean through. We can heal that with icing, and besides, if it tastes good, that’s what really matters. Beauty isn’t everything.”

Beauty isn’t everything. Imagine that.

“You will get better and better, the more you practice. You can do anything you set your mind to.”

Profound truths uncovered. Thanks, Mom.

Thoughts on Random Things

 

 

Have you ever--and I know you have--opened your silverware drawer and wondered what's up with this random butter knife?

 

 

Or maybe it's a spoon matching no pattern you've ever owned. Seldom, a fork. And why is that, do you suppose? Forks must have a hard time repositioning themselves.

 

The strange knife with the floral pattern embellished on its handle spurred me to ponder about random possessions. They flow through my life like river flotsam: scarves, socks, serving utensils, plates, even at times, animals. They show up for a time, then move with the space/time continuum. Beamed in to help me make a sandwich or to lick my hand, then gone when I think to chase them down.

 

Random things intrigue me, especially in my writing life. What is the story of that knife? Did it coast in with a shared loaf of banana bread and leave as easily with a tin of cookies? Do ghosts appear and make themselves sandwiches, leaving their favorite knives behind? That would explain the fact I seem to never run even with the sliced turkey/cheese count. Maybe they're the ones leaving the pickle jars in the refrigerator, with just one lonely dill bobbing in a gallon of brine.

 

Do these same entities move my car keys and the novel I was reading? Hm...

 

See what comes of me having time off to think?

 

 

My best to you for a Happy New Year. It will, no doubt, be filled with degrees of emotion. Good and bad.

Random and predictable.

 

May you always find random things to bring a little wonder into your life.

 

Rhett DeVane

 

 



The Muses Return...and bring their joy.

 

THE MUSES RETURN 

The universe has sneaky ways to remind me of things I’ve conveniently forgotten. Kudos to the universe. It’s light-years ahead of me in the smarts’ department ( like that’s news).

The first tap came last weekend when I spotted and purchased a framed quote in a gift shop—more of a slap than a tap. Here’s the quote:

“Promise me you will not spend so much time treading water and trying to keep your head above the waves that you forget, truly forget, how much you have always loved to swim.” –Tyler Knot Gregson

The quote hangs in my bathroom, where I will read it every morning.

The second El Kabong came as I replanted a clump of volunteer clover. A small grey rock with the word JOY etched on one side fell from its hidey-hole in a stack of planters. This rock, a gift from a friend many years ago, had vanished amidst the garden rubble. Add to this: clover is associated with luck. Double whack.

The word JOY is one letter away from being the word JOB.

How many times recently have I transformed writing into a job rather than a joy? Too many. Many seminars I’ve attended in the past few years have focused on the “work” of writing. The phrase wormed into my heart and my joyful creative life turned into a toil, a struggle, a JOB. Shame on me for insulting the muses.

Third knock on the noodle came via author Cheryl Strayed. I devoured her creative nonfiction “Wild”, then moved on to order “Tiny Beautiful Things,” a book filled with questions and answers once published as an advice column.

One selection reminded me to simply write…that it is my joy, my calling, my purpose. To quit worrying about whether this book or that one will land in the hands of some New York publisher: that is not my concern. So many things in this life are clearly chance, fate… My mission is to WRITE THE BEST BOOK I CAN.

The importance of  perfecting the craft can’t be downplayed. And it gets both easier and harder, the longer I do it. The necessity of approaching agents, yammering on Facebook and Twitter, and networking still exists. No one is going to show up at my door, contract in hand, and sweep me away in a limo. It’s up to me to do my part.

Yet…

I pledge to allow joy to overshadow jabber. My clutch of muses—a temperamental inbred bunch who hate Southern humidity and flee for Canada in late May—are back. Glad to see y’all. Missed you. Hope you’re ready to dance, because this writer is ready to lead, or follow.

I don’t need a fourth clobber to get it. I’m smart that way.

Yesterday, I attended a memorial service for a wonderful man I knew only through snippets of conversation shared 50 minutes at a time, every 6 months, for over 25 years. I cherished him, as I do his family.

I've never been a fan of the extreme professional distance school of thought. My patients are much more than random people with "the same set of teeth."

Often, I wonder how medical and dental professionals can push aside attachments to their patients. I refuse to do that. Over my 34 years as a dental hygienist, I've treated the rich and the poor, the famous and the not-so, the angels and the curmudgeons. I've seen pictures of children, grandchildren, pets, gardens, travels, and homes.

My patients--this deep well of friends--listen in turn to my ramblings: plot lines, characters, all things unreal. They've cheered me on and stood in endless lines at book launches. To see those cherished smiles--ones I help to maintain--grinning at me: priceless!

They've also comforted me after the loss of my sister and both parents. Sent cards and flowers when I suddenly fell ill and required serious surgery. Lifted me up on days I didn't feel worth a "plug nickel."

Most know I'm an author, and often share some tale I might include in a novel. One volunteered to pose as a character model for "Hot Mama Jean in her high-healed boots and jeans," a woman I will include somewhere.

We've laughed often, cried a few times, and shared news of births, weddings, graduations, and deaths. Somewhere in there, I managed to do my work, making sure I contributed to their dental health.

When I lose one of my people to The Other Side, I grieve. Then I recall his or her smile, some story we shared, some way we reached across the void to link our humanity. And I feel honored to have been even a 50-minute, 6-month part of their lives.

Godspeed to you, my friend. May we meet again.

Rhett DeVane
Fiction with a Southern Twist

Rhett's website

Writers4Higher Blog

The Crazy Southern author is back!

It's been way too long since I posted to this blog. Life has happened: deaths, births, laughter, tears.

In the meantime, I have published four books. Written thousands of words. Traveled. Met new friends.

From this point, I plan to sign on and blather from time to time. Join me if you wish.

Also visit my new blog dedicated to authors who give back: Writers4Higher

If you'd like a fresh look at my books and vision: Rhett's author website