A Country Boy Can Surmise

A couple of weeks ago, I was recruited to participate in the Virtual Blog Tour that's been making the rounds on the interwebs in which i was to answer four questions.  Here's my contribution: 1. What are you currently working on? I am doing a full revision on my sixth novel, Little Fire , which I thought I would have done a year ago.  I never could get it exactly the way I was hearing it in my own head and so I kept rewriting it until finally I think it does what I want it to do.  This is the most rewrites I've ever done on a novel, I believe, but probably because it's hugely thematic and covers a pretty big canvas although it takes place over a relatively short period of time (about two years).  It has three very distinct settings:  Middle Tennessee during the devastating 2010 flood, a road trip across the modern American South--a place of truck stops and dying towns, busy interstate exits and long stretches of nothing but hardcore gospel on the radio, of roadside mem

Several trusted friends were adamant that I watch HBO’s series “ True Detective ” and I did, finding myself immediately pulled in by its atmospheric sense of place, lyrical writing, and powerful performances.   Much of “True Detective” was absolutely heart-pounding to watch, driven by haunting performances and nail-biting suspense.   I greatly appreciated the way it showcases rural people as being intelligent and possessing a strong work ethic (almost anytime a rural character is shown they are working, whether it be sweeping a porch or pulling in fishing nets—this in stark contrast to the way country people are usually shown on television, as shiftless and lazy).   I loved watching it but I found myself increasingly troubled by some aspects of it throughout. I felt the show sometimes bordered on misogyny.   All of the women were either whores or saints (in fairness, the only real leading female character—whose role can be boiled down to “the wife”—eventually becomes a