Having a Favorite Child
I know, you aren’t supposed to have a favorite child. Luckily I only have one actual child, so I don’t have this dilemma. But I do have ten books I have written and published, and I DO have a favorite among those.
Now, let me be clear. I love them all. How can I not? I spent months writing, editing, and designing them. They are all a part of me. But, as stories go, one has the biggest spot in my heart.
Family Line was born out of memories of my grandfather on my father’s side. He was a quiet, stoic man who lived on a small farm in Oklahoma. To call it a farm is giving it a lot of credit. He did have cows most of the time, but that’s about it. I would spend weeks at a time in the summer at my grandparent’s place.
The thing about my grandpa, though, is he was psychic. Okay, I know I may have lost some folks there, and I’m not 100% sure how much I believe in it, but that was what our father always told my sister and me.
Once when I was a kid I was told by my dad that I couldn’t ride my bike for two weeks. This was small town Arkansas in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s. Riding my bike was my only transportation. It was a way of life. And why was I randomly grounded? My grandpa had called my dad to tell him about a dream he’d had where I was hit by a car while riding my bike. I guess there was an expiration date on the premonition because soon enough I was out riding all over town again.
Fun aside, there were stories that my dad told me about Grandpa’s dreams, stories I was most definitely too young to hear, that stuck with me. And one day in my late 40’s I thought about those stories. They became the inspiration behind Family Line. They are fictionalized and altered from what I could remember, and from what my dad could remember. No character in the book is ‘my grandpa’, rather his spirit is in the two main men in the book that have the same gift he had.
Family Line was the last book of mine that my father read before he died. And he never told me, but I could tell that it was his favorite of my books as well.
There is also a location in the book with a deep connection to another family member. My brother-in-law (oddly named David, the same as my grandpa) passed away a few years ago. Well before that when I was visiting him and my sister in Oklahoma he said he wanted to take me somewhere so I could take some photos. We loaded up in his pickup and drove the dirt roads for a while. He told me stories about things that had happened to him growing up there (“That field there is the first place I was ever bit by a snake…”). We stopped at an old stone church that sat derelict in a cow pasture. It was a product of the Works Progress Administration and had the profile of Theodore Roosevelt over the door. My brother-in-law’s grandpa had been the founding pastor of the church and his name was inscribed beside the door.
I was already writing Family Line by the time Dave took me to the church, but I left knowing it would become a part of the story. In the end, it was my favorite element of the book: a safe haven where the main character Wesley would go by himself.
So, yes, I do have a favorite book of mine. And it is Family Line.
Miss you Grandpa.
Miss you Dad.
Miss you Dave.