What readers say about St. Peter’s Monsters July 21, 2009

“I loved the flow of your book.  You jumped around in time so seamlessly.  Congratulations on a job well done!” — C.O.

“I absolutely loved your book and I read at least four novels a week!” — G.F.

“A great read. Peter and Wren had my heart from the beginning.” — V.H.

“I am becoming so absorbed in your book. I’m loving it!” — A.P.

“The book was very good. It read well.” — B.D.

“It was wonderful! I couldn’t put it down.” — D.C.

“Your book was great . . . waiting for the next one.” — S.B.

“You plot well. I was interested in the events of the story, and I knew, after I had read several pages, that you would keep me interested. I cared about the characters and wanted good things to happen to them.” — C.S.

“St. Peter’s Monsters is a very well written, very captivating and enjoyable book, and one of the very few books that I plan to reread. I have loaned it to three friends who all agree.” — D.B.

“The book was so well written! You are an excellent author and I hope you will continue to write and write and write some more.” — C.R.

“I thought the story was fantastic, cleverly presented, especially the way the chapters transitioned, and wonderfully written. I couldn’t put it down for more than a few minutes.” — C.M.

“It’s one of the best novels I’ve read that uses this area as the frame around the story. You captured the beauty of . . . Southwest Virginia in a love story filled with twists and turns, and an ending that, like a fine dessert, left the reader satisfied. Good work.” — M.A.

“It was a delight to read this book. The characters are well-defined. I hope [other readers] enjoy this book as much as I did.” — P.B.

“I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and I did not want it to end. Keep up the good writing, and I can’t wait until your next book will be published. Keep writing!!” — P.L.

“It is awesome; it was hard to put down.  You are a very gifted author.  I love to read and I will be looking forward to your next novel.” — C.R.

“I let a few of my friends read my copy and they are all CRAZY about it!!  They loved it and wanted their own copy and some even said they wanted to order one for family/friends.” — K.G.

“I enjoyed your book very much. I worked faster because I could hardly wait to get back to Peter and Wren.” — M.B.

Excerpt from “Sawmill Boys.” Appalachian Heritage, vol. 34, no. 4 (Fall 2006). June 4, 2009

Excerpt from “Sawmill Boys.” Appalachian Heritage, vol. 34, no. 4 (Fall 2006).

For more information about Appalachian Heritage, Berea College’s literary journal, and to order back issues, visit http://community.berea.edu/appalachianheritage/

by Neva Bryan

“Where there’s loggers, there’s bound to be sawmill boys.”

Sawmill boys. I liken them to trees because they possess two kinds of beauty. The first kind is in their natural freedom, the beauty of a tree standing tall with its brothers. But when the sawmill gets a hold on them, they develop a second kind of beauty, the kind that comes from being cut down, sawed up, and spit out. Rough cut, splintered, shaped for utility.

A sawmill boy can take a 4X4 between the eyes that’ll lay him out flat on his ass and then get back up to finish his workday. They all wear a strange cologne of diesel fuel, hydraulic fluid, and cigarette smoke. Sawdust trails them like breadcrumbs for the lost. They’re lean, with knotty arms and hard faces, but their eyes are dreamy.

Wendell, my ex-husband, was a sawmill boy. I remember the first time I saw him, more than five years ago. He was coming out of the ABC store with a bottle of Jack Daniels tucked under his arm. He had that sawmill boy look – lean and hard – but he was dressed to party: Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt, faded jeans, black and silver biker boots.

His fair skin was ruddy from working outside all day. When I got close I saw that his knuckles were skinned, scabbed, and scarred . . . a perpetual state for sawmill boys, I learned later. At least he had all his fingers.

When he cocked his head at me and grinned, I saw a slight gap between his two front teeth. As he smiled, his eyes darkened from coffee-and-cream to pure black liquid. His hair was the color of my Granny’s apple butter; I thought how sweet it would be to free it from its tight ponytail and watch it tumble down around me. Just looking at him made me hungry.

Before I knew it, Wendell and I sat on the bank of the Clinch River sharing Jack and naming stars. By turns he was raunchy and sweet, sad and funny, goofy and sexy. I gave up to him with an immediacy – an urgency – that was quite foreign to me. It seems I had taken a 4X4 right between the eyes. Wendell Kennedy was a splinter who had worked his way straight into my heart.

Nothing ever happens here June 1, 2009

My first book, St. Peter’s Monsters, is set in and around St. Paul and Castlewood, my home towns. When people from the area find out, they say “nothing ever happens here.”

I say, “Something is always happening.”

Your duty is to take the time to notice it.

Think about it. At any given moment, a woman is giving birth (or a man is working on the conception). Someone else is dying. Another person is lying or stealing or – not very often – killing. Down the street, couples are worrying about the kids and the bills. Families are enjoying dinner. Boyfriends and girlfriends are fighting. Businesses are making money . . . or losing it. A mother is crying. Teenagers are gossiping, texting, sexting. Children are playing. A wife has been hit. Another has been hugged. A man is praying. A baby is laughing. A young person is studying.

The very fact that we’re breathing means something is happening!

Yes, my book is fiction. The things that happen in it are not real. That doesn’t mean real life in my town is any less dramatic than the stories I’ve created.

It seems we believe that what happens to each of us every day is not noteworthy because it happens to US . . . EVERY DAY. We find our own lives boring.

I challenge you to take the time to notice what’s happening within you and outside you. Notice life!

My Town

This is my town. At St. Paul’s edge, ducks flank the downy banks of Oxbow Lake. Poplars, maples and cedars shade its mile-long trail. On this Friday evening, the sun touches only treetops. I find a rock outcrop and soak up its heat like a lizard. In late September, the mountains hunch down around us and spread their blue shadows until the air grows cold.

Summer’s weariness is apparent here. A drought has left foliage brown. A single withered leaf floats on the lake’s current, spinning in the wake of a line of ducks. They paddle by me, their tails jacked up in the air, their feet pumping the dark water. The leader quacks orders and the sound makes me think of old men laughing at a dirty joke.

The birds waddle toward a family perched on a bench. The man removes his baseball cap and shoos them away from his child. The little girl tosses a piece of bread to the ducks, screaming with delight when they gobble the treat. When her mother tries to pull her to the car, she cries.

“I’m going to drag you if you don’t come on!” the woman threatens. The father stumps up the wooden stairs swinging his arms slow and wide. For a moment, the scent of cigarette smoke lingers in the air, before a gentle wind whisks it into the mercury sky.

In the distance, a coal truck’s Jake brakes punctuate the air with a shrill ellipsis. The driver is shifting gears as he prepares to drop his last load. That coal will go out of Wise County’s hills on a train, the one I hear sounding its horn now. The clatter of its wheels drowns the chatter of a squirrel somewhere above me.

I cruise through St. Paul. Many of my town’s thousand residents appear outside. “Better enjoy these last warm days,” a heavyset woman calls out. I shiver at the thought of coal-blackened snow.

Three teenage boys rib each other as they walk toward the high school grounds. They look like a small army: black t-shirts, cargo pants and dog tags. The football field’s loudspeakers echo across town as the announcer prepares for the game.

Some of us forgo Friday night lights for other pleasures. An old man carries his guitar into a storefront church. Across the street, a woman sells apples from her truck bed. The golden fruit blushes, looking pretty in stiff white paper sacks. An old woman worries her collar as she negotiates price with the vendor. She rests her hand on her paunch as if she is pregnant.

I pass a clump of political signs posted in an empty lot. A discarded lottery ticket flutters in the street. On a backstreet, kids congregate in muscle cars. As I pass, I hear the low, lazy laugh of a young man. It’s a sound full of desire and life and audacity.

I wonder if he’s ever known defeat or the frailty of the soul at 2 a.m.

Neva’s Poem to be read on WRFL-FM Lexington May 15 May 11, 2009

Listen to Accents every Friday @ 2pm EST on WRFL 88.1 FM Lexington or stream live from wrfl.fm.

This Friday, May 15, they’ll be reading a poem of mine, “Anoint Me.”

Also, the guest that day will be poet Frank X. Walker.

Katerina Stoykova-Klemer is the host.

Let me know what you think!

Wise County Man April 1, 2008

WISE COUNTY MAN  

Sleep in Sunday sunshine

and calico shadows.

 

Tomorrow you’ll

bear down on bitter asphalt

and haul another load.

 

Have your fun Friday:

rumble in parking lots, bars, and back roads,

but come home to me.

 

Wash away the black fuzz

of diesel and dust,

and we’ll fumble in this dimwitted light

’til our tarnished love sparkles in the dark.

 

Twine yourself around me:

we are tight as the laces of a steel-toed boot.

   “Wise County Man.”  The Bluestone Review (Spring 2007).