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I’m writing from the summer transition.
If you’re a parent of school-aged kids, especially elementary-school-aged kids, then you know what I’m talking about. If you’re not, or you were once but now you’ve forgotten what it’s like, let me explain.
Summer isn’t all rainbows and butterflies and endless days at the pool. Which is, of course, what kids think.
As hard as parents may try to live up to such expectations, nobody goes to Disney World every week. There are only so many pool play dates and trips to the snow-cone stand. There’s also this thing called work which still takes place over the summer, at least for some parents.
It wasn’t that way when I was growing up.
Both my parents were school teachers. Summers meant total freedom (outside of Dad’s daily reading/writing assignments and throwing 100 strikes). In short, Mom and Dad were just as elated about summer as I was.
I’m still a teacher, and university summers often extend past public school breaks, but it’s my other gig that’s causing the hang-up this time around.
My writing gig.
This summer I have an extensive revision for my fourth manuscript due the day before my third novel releases. My wife also works. She has a real job. One with predetermined hours outside of the household. Oh, and my kids have swim practice in the morning, five days a week, on top of too many camps to count.
In other words, my summer gig has quickly transformed into running a taxi service.
“Dad’s Taxicab” is a 2014 slate gray Tacoma. With two car seats in the already tight second row, the driver’s seat rides real close to the wheel. My knees touch the dash. The other day, my daughter made a joke that I looked like a character from “Mario Kart.”
To make matters worse, we’re also remodeling our basement. Which means I no longer have an office. I’m a man without a country, resigned to the kitchen, the back deck—basically wherever the kids aren’t—with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones strapped over my ears.
If all of this sounds dire, it is, or I guess it was, until just recently.
My kids and I realized what summer was really about on the same day. It was a Sunday. No, a Monday, maybe? It doesn’t matter. Summer days are all the same. The kids were bored. I was restless, itching to get working on my revision. Then, out of nowhere, our collective epiphany arrived in the form of an empty Amazon box.
I cut two eyes out of one end and put the box on my head. I started talking in a nasally tone of voice. I bent my arms at ninety-degree angles. I rotated my hips back and forth.
And just like that, I’d transformed into “Daddy Robot.”
The game wasn’t much different than my role as a taxi driver. I went wherever the kids told me to go. I cleaned their rooms. I chased the cat. I tried to eat yogurt, but my new boxy head didn’t have a mouth.
The kids laughed until they cried and the day passed faster than the ones before it. Now, the only question is… what will we do tomorrow?
| 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: |
• I’m Writing from the Road
• Writing from The deck with a six-string in my lap
• Writing from JazzFests gone past
• Writing from My "Circle of Control"
• Writing from the morning after a Greta Van Fleet show
• Writing from a Tee Ball Field
• Writing from My Office
• Writing from the shadow of a total eclipse
• Writing From Columbus, Ohio
• Writing from a Dusty Floored Gym
• Writing From: My office with an icepack on my lap
• Writing from the Waffle House
• Writing from: Two-years into this "author" gig
• Writing from: Trut grit county
• Writing from: The rafters in the basement
• Writing from: A land of dripping noses and all-night coughs
• Writing from: Another Dimension
• Writing from Fearrington Village, North Carolina
• Writing from My daughter’s basketball game
• Writing from My thirty sixth year
• Writing from Forrest City, Arkansas
• Writing from Nap Time
• Writing from Winter Park, Colorado
• Writing from the end of the year
• Writing from First United Methodist Church
• Writing from the end of the first semester
• Writing from the cusp of another visit
• Writing from a Razorback Game
• Writing From: The End
• Writing from Oyster Island
• Writing from Jayne Lemons
• Writing from Bed
• Writing from Witherspoon Hall
• Writing From: Coco
• Writing from the Beach
• Writing From: Crooked Creek
• Writing from a Nursing Home
• Writing from a Firework Tent
• Writing from a Boat
• Writing from the Stars
• Writing from the Pool
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• Writing from the Kitchen
• Writing from Summer
• Writing from Kindergarten
• Writing from Mom
• Writing from a Plane
• Writing from Home
• 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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