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I’m writing from the First United Methodist Church.
The Cranors are here for the Candlelight Service. We’re sitting in the second to last row, the same place I’ve set for as far back as I can remember. I’m writing on the inside flap of a torn-apart donation envelope.
When I was my kids’ age, I used to tear similar envelopes open and draw in them. Sometimes, I’d draw the altar lined now with poinsettias, or maybe the twenty-foot-tall tree, the same tree, same ornaments, fellow back-row Methodist Danny Taylor has been graciously decorating for decades.
I love this place. I love this service, too.
In a few more minutes, the sanctuary lights will dim and the members of the choir will come down from their loft. They’ll sing “Silent Night” as they move into the aisles, carrying candles like the one in my son’s hands now. A moment ago, he held the wax cylinder like a dagger and jabbed the wick at his sister.
When the choir finally shares their light with the congregation, I’ll have to help my son hold his candle, the same way my parents used to help me.
One year, a bit of melted wax slipped through the plastic guard. I remember the heat. How my mother tried to take the candle from me, but I wouldn’t let go. I wouldn’t even lower my hand. I’d made some sort of deal with myself, with God, and maybe Santa Claus, too.
I was always making deals back then. If I made five free throws in a row, then Emma Lee would kiss my cheek beneath the green slide during after-lunch recess. If I kept my hand up for the entirety of “Silent Night,” then Santa would leave a Nintendo 64 beneath my tree on Christmas morning.
There was more to this particular candle deal than Christmas gifts. There were questions already forming in my nine-year-old mind, attempts to reconcile the stories I’d been told: the manger, the wise men, immaculate conception, and how what I’d learned in Sunday School related to a jolly old elf who lived at the North Pole.
As the wax cooled between my knuckles, my mother finally let go, but I didn't. I kept my hand up until the overhead lights clicked back on and Mom leaned over, blowing out my candle before asking, “What was that about?”
I looked up at her, like I would for only a few more Christmases, until I grew taller than she, taller, even, than my father, and said, “I don’t know.”
Ambiguous, though it was, there was truth behind my answer. My youth was filled with questions and back-row deals and torn-apart envelopes, their flaps covered in my scribbles. All these years later, the questions remain as I sit here once again, in the same place I was twenty-five Christmases ago.
| Books authored by Eli Cranor |
Broiler
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The troubles of two desperate families—one white, one Mexican American—converge rest in the ruthless underworld of an Arkansas chicken processing plant in this new thriller from the award-winning author of DON’T KNOW TOUGH.
Gabriela Menchaca and Edwin Saucedo are hardworking, undocumented employees at the Detmer Foods chicken plant in Springdale, Arkansas, just a stone’s throw away from the trailer park where they’ve lived together for seven years. While dealing with personal tragedies of their own, the young couple endures the brutal, dehumanizing conditions at the plant in exchange for barebones pay.
When the plant manager, Luke Jackson, fires Edwin to set an example for the rest of the workers—and to show the higher-ups that he’s ready for a major promotion—Edwin is determined to get revenge on Luke and his wife, Mimi, a new mother who stays at home with her six-month-old son. Edwin’s impulsive action sets in motion a devastating chain of events that illuminates the deeply entrenched power dynamics between those who revel at the top and those who toil at the bottom.
From the nationally bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author of Don’t Know Tough and Ozark Dogs comes another edge-of-your-seat noir thriller that exposes the dark, bloody heart of life on the margins in the American South and the bleak underside of a bygone American Dream. |
Don't Know Tough
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In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his mother’s abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension.
Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoff bid goodbye. But the head coach, Trent Powers, who just moved from California with his wife and two children for this job, has more than just his paycheck riding on Billy’s bad behavior. As a born-again Christian, Trent feels a divine calling to save Billy—save him from his circumstances, and save his soul.
Then Billy’s abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs. |
Ozark Dogs
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In this Southern thriller, two families grapple with the aftermath of a murder in their small Arkansas town.
After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt.
Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend—or in some cases, destroy it. |
| Previous columns: |
• Writing from the end of the first semester
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• Writing from a Razorback Game
• Writing From: The End
• Writing from Oyster Island
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• Writing from Bed
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• Writing from the Kitchen
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• My second novel’s publication
• A New Marriage Milestone
• An Invitation to the Party
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• Writing from a Soundbooth
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• Writing from the Sabbath
• Writing from somewhere between Little Rock and Russellville
• Writing from my back deck
• Writing from the morning of my thirty-fifth year
• Writing on the day of the college football National Championship
• Writing from the space between breaths
• Writing from 2022
• Writing from the glow of a plastic Christmas tree
• Writing on a rollercoaster of triumph and disaster
• Writing from the drop-off line at my daughter’s elementary school
• Writing with Thanksgiving on my mind
• Writing from the crowd before the start of a Shovels & Rope show
• Writing from the depths of a post-book-festival hangover
• Writing from the Ron Robinson Theatre
• Writing to you on Halloween Eve
• Writing from my bed on a Saturday morning
• Writing from my office with two darts clenched in my left hand
• Writing from the shade of my favorite tree
• Writing from my desk on a Tuesday morning
• Writing from a pirate ship
• Writing from the airport
• Writing from the hospital
• I'm writing from the water
• Writing from my wife's Honda Pilot
• Writing from my office |
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