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Image courtesy of Luke Hefley
I’m writing from home.
Finally.
I was only gone five days, but book-tour days are like dog years. Time expands and contracts on the road. Late nights with old friends and new fans bleed into bleary-eyed, early mornings spent hustling to the next event.
It’s exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. Try as I might, I can’t work on the road. There are too many distractions. Too many itineraries chock full of times and dates and people to meet.
When I finally rolled back into town, the first thing I did was strip down to my trunks and go jump in the lake. I needed to wash the road off. Needed to clear my head and get a kick of energy before the hometown launch event at Arkansas Tech University.
My babies came down to the dock to cheer me on. The waves splashed their school shoes. It was cool and windy. The water took my breath away.
It was perfect.
When I emerged, I was shivering but feeling more like myself again. I’d been dry too long. My skin needs that muddy water. Needs it like I need my family to keep my mind between the ditches.
Some people think authors are impeded by their kids, their wife, any and all responsibilities outside the page. It doesn’t work that way for me. For me, my family is the drive gear, the one that turns all the others.
My children inspire me with their boundless curiosity and ceaseless questions. My wife, on the other hand, keeps me grounded. When things get really hectic, she doesn’t even let me drive because she knows just how scattered I am.
Even with lake water still dripping from the tips of my beard, I was still feeling scattered. There was a real storm on the horizon too, billowing up over the top of Mount Nebo.
After five straight days on the road, the upcoming “Ozark Dogs” launch party felt a lot like that storm. Still, I came in, took a warm shower, and listened to my daughter go over a laundry list of all the different outfits she might wear. My son got quiet and curled up in our bed watching “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” as quiet as he’d ever been.
The storm had me scared, and I think my kids could feel it. I feared the storm would turn everybody away from the launch. I was also afraid that I'd put people at risk by simply holding the event.
It all felt strangely familiar.
Tornado sirens had gone off during my first novel’s release, but that didn’t stop the good folks of Russellville, Arkansas, from showing up in droves.
And the same was true this time around.
When it finally came time for me to take the stage at ATU — my skin dry, the lake water gone— I was still being replenished. The type of nourishment that can only come from family and friends.
From love.
The launch event was everything I ever dreamed, and more. Afterwards, we went downtown to Fat Daddy’s Barbeque where we feasted on some of the best southern fixings in Arkansas.
It wasn’t until I got home, however, that I finally noticed the best thing of all. Taped to the Cranor kitchen wall was a window-sized sheet of butcher paper. Written on that paper in big bubble letters colored in by my kids, were the words: "WELCOME HOME DADDY."
Welcome home, indeed.
Don't Know Tough
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
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: |
• My second novel’s publication
• A New Marriage Milestone
• An Invitation to the Party
• Writing from a Thunderstorm
• Writing from a Soundbooth
• Writing from “Jazz Beach"
• 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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