Author of Rain Breaks No Bones, published today
Today’s Author Interview is with Barbara J. Taylor, author of the Scranton Trilogy, published by Akashic Books (A Kaylie Jones Book is the imprint). She is also Barb Taylor, my beloved first cousin. Barb is a few years more vintage than I, and I remember when I was a kid, she would take me on walks in Scranton, around Providence, The Plot, or Green Ridge. She would talk to me about the different businesses and tell me Scranton stories. Fast forward… a few… years, and Barb is still telling me Scranton stories. She’s just sharing them with a wider audience.
I came up with five questions to ask Barb, and she very kindly replied. Here is the conversation we shared:
1. What inspired Rain Breaks No Bones?
On November 4, 2008, the same night then-senator, Barack Obama, won his first presidential election, a majority of Arkansians voted in favor of Act 1, a state statute banning individuals “cohabitating with a sexual partner outside of marriage that is valid …” from fostering and/or adopting children. Since the Supreme Court would not declare same-sex marriage to be legal for another six-and-a-half years, many understood Act 1 for what it was—anti-gay legislation.
I wanted to sit in hope that night. America had turned some sort of corner in electing Barrack Obama to the presidency, knocked down another racial barrier. A good step forward. Yet, one of our states had voted to take a step back when it came to LGBTQ rights.
At the time of the election, I was revising a draft of what would turn out to be my debut novel, Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night. Months earlier, my agent had suggested the book might be a good start to a trilogy. I’m not a writer who outlines, so I couldn’t be sure where the series would take me, but I decided each book would be set about twenty years apart, putting book three in the mid 1950s, early in the civil rights movement. As I watched the election results that night, I started jotting down notes. The writer in me needed to capture the reality of how hope and despair can exist in the same space, including when it comes to prejudice of any kind. Even though I hadn’t finished working on my first novel, those notes became the seeds for my latest book, Rain Breaks No Bones.
2. Can you share an instance where real life events inspired your writing?
Rain Breaks No Bones is the final book in my Scranton Trilogy. I wrote each book as a stand-alone, so they can be read in any order, but the inciting incident that started it all is very loosely based on a family story (one you know well, my cousin). Growing up, I heard about the childhood death of my great-aunt Pearl. She was playing with a sparkler on the Fourth of July, in 1918, the same day as her baptism, and her dress caught fire. It was said that she never complained during the three days she lay dying. Instead, she sang the songs she’d learned in Sunday school. When Pearl died, people from all over Scranton came to the house to view the body of the little girl who sang hymns. As many times as I heard that story, I always wondered about her sister Janet who was also in the yard that day. By the time I knew her, she was a grandmother, and no one ever mentioned the accident in her presence. Janet didn’t have the happiest life, and I wondered what effect Pearl’s death had on her. That wondering inspired me to create the character of Violet, my protagonist in all three novels.
3. Which comes first for you, the plot or the characters?
My books are definitely character-driven. My agent once told me there are two kinds of writers—those who outline and those who write organically. I’m in the second group. I don’t know what’s going to happen till I sit down at my computer to write. Luckily, when I can get out of my own way and not overthink it, my characters often show me the way.
4. Which is your favorite character in this book, or the one you relate to the most?
Zethray is my favorite! OK, that answer came to me too quickly, and now I feel like I’m cheating on my other characters. Truth be told, I love them all, but after this many years in my head, Violet and company are like family. When you spend most of your time with family, it’s nice to see a new face once in a while. I love Zethray. I know a Zethray in real life, and she’s a wonderful human being. While my Zethray and the real one don’t have much in common, they both share a big heart.
5. What was one of the most surprising things that you learned in creating your book?
This is probably not the answer you’re expecting, but I learned to overcome my fear. Or more precisely, I learned to recognize my fear, give a nod in her direction and keep going. I had a lot of stops with this book. As a white woman who’s trying my best to catch up with the history we never learned and the privilege I didn’t quite understand, the idea of writing about race stopped me in my tracks. I wanted to get it right. Turns out perfectionism isn’t so conducive to creativity, so eventually, I settled on doing my best. Covid and politics stopped me as well. For a long time I had only one thought, The world is on fire. Again, not the most conducive state of mind for an author. I had long unproductive periods while working on this book, but I never gave up. I’m proud of myself for that. I learned to write in spite of the fear and, in the end, I think the book is better for it.
Rain Breaks No Bones is available on Amazon Kindle, or in paperback at your favorite book retailer.
Get in touch with me at catgrinning@gmail.com
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