| |
I’m writing from the road.
The Cranor Crew is on our annual pilgrimage to Pensacola. In ten hours, we’ll be at the beach, the Emerald Coast, white sand, turquoise water, and way more tourists now than there were thirty years ago.
I-40 eastbound is busy too. Both lanes are crammed with hulking Fords and sporty SUVs. The vehicles are loaded with paddle boards, deflated inflatables, and fishing poles strapped over roof racks. The cargo gives the destination away.
We’re all headed in the same direction, passing and being passed (sometimes by the same car, over and over again). Down around Lake Village the interstate’s long gone, replaced by two-lane highways. The Panola Pepper Sauce Company is around here somewhere, along with a tiny little town called Transylvania, Louisiana (a combination that inspired Graham Gordy’s magical short video, “Spanola Pepper Sauce Company”).
There’s a bat on the water tower in Transylvania. You can see the tower from exactly 4.7 miles away. I know this because Dad used to make me guess when we made this same drive every summer.
Noses deep in their tablets, my kids miss the bat-themed water tower. They miss Transylvania, too. I feel bad, but road trips are the only time they get devices, and the silence is, well, golden.
My wife’s driving. I’m riding shotgun, laptop warm on my thighs as my fingers clack across the keys. We’ll switch in Jackson, after we’ve eaten lunch and purchased beach reads from Lemuria Books. I’ve got my eye on Kent Wascom’s new novel, The Great State of West Florida, which features a woman with a golden arm and something like a civil war.
At the tunnel in Mobile, we’ll hold our breath, or, if traffic is heavy, we’ll bypass the tunnel altogether. The kids will notice the palm trees first. Then the water. The sea breaks the tablets’ spell. They’re tired, restless and giddy, but they can smell the ocean now and begin to squeal.
From the USS Alabama to the rainbow-finned marlin marking the path to Pensacola, squealing spans the final hour. It’s like a protracted Christmas morning, especially if the bay bridge is backed up.
Eventually, we arrive at the same time as the Ford with the paddleboards and the fishing poles which kept passing us, then falling back, then passing us again. Even if it’s late, we’ll still hit the beach. We’ll still stick our toes in the sand, but that’s not the point.
This is a road column, an ode to the 576 miles between us and the ocean, the very same ten-hour drive we’ll make after our five-day vacation.
| Books authored by Eli Cranor |
Broiler
Buy the Book
Commissions earned
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
Buy the Book
Commissions earned
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
Buy the Book
Commissions earned
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 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
|
• 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 |
|
