J. C. Sasser

                  

                  

I'll start right off with this issue of Advance Reading Copy with these two amazing blurbs for this wonderful book, and I agree with them both, whole heartedly.

First, from the legendary George Singleton:

"Anyone who doesn’t fall in love with Gradle Bird, the character, might want to stop by an Urgent Care facility for an EKG. Anyone not totally mesmerized by the world depicted in Gradle Bird, the novel, might as well forfeit his or her Human Being ID card. J.C. Sasser’s invented a complex, big-hearted, dirt-road-smart protagonist surrounded by hilarious one-of-a-kind characters (and a ghost). Absurd, yet utterly believable. Southern, yet universal. I’m jealous."

-George Singleton, author of Calloustown and The Half-Mammals of Dixie

and then from Bren McClain

"Lush, haunting and imaginative, Gradle Bird marks J.C. Sasser as America’s new Southern Gothic darling, a name soon to be spoken alongside the likes of Harper Lee and Carson McCullers.” –Bren McClain, author of One Good Mama Bone

Not bad for a debut novel, that's what I say. 
If you still are not convinced to make this book a part of your life, then listen to Kathleen M. Rodgers of the Southern Literary Review:

"Can a savior come in the form of a sixteen-year-old girl in a green prom dress and cat-eyed glasses? A phenomenal debut novel by gifted storyteller J. C. Sasser, Gradle Bird flips southern gothic fiction on its head and turns ghosts stories inside out. Forget everything you thought you knew about this genre and all preconceived notions about coming-of-age stories set in the contemporary south.

From the moment we meet Gradle and her grandpa, Leonard, we are reeled into a gritty story about survival, regrets, loss, forgiveness, and eventually redemption. If you’ve lost faith in humanity, pick up this book and get absorbed in this fictional world where love and devotion sometimes push boundaries.

If you’ve ever had to scrape together money to buy food, pay rent, put a roof over your head, this book is for you. If you’ve ever lived with pain and regret and guilt, regardless of whether you live on the outskirts of society or in the finest house in town, or if you’ve ever loved someone so much that your heart leaps and dances and waits just to be in his or her presence, this book is for you.

You might want to grab a hanky as you near the end of this novel, which made me simultaneously weep and smile. Gradle Bird was shortlisted in the 2015 William Faulkner-William Wisdom novel competition and was selected as a 2017 Pulpwood Queens book club pick, Deep South Magazine’s Summer Reading Pick, Trio 18, and SIBA Spring Okra pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Association."

About JC Sasser:

Born and raised in Metter, Georgia, J.C. Sasser started her professional career at age 12, working as a dishwasher, waitress, and cook at a truck stop off Georgia’s I-16. Over her life, she has worked as an envelope licker, tortoise tagger, lifeguard, Senate page, model, editor, water-polo coach, marine biologist, plant grower, software consultant, and 6-Sigma Black Belt.

Tell me, JC, about where you live and why you love it so much.

I live on a rural island off the coast of South Carolina called Edisto.

I love it because no matter how long I live here, no matter how many back roads I ride, no matter how many creeks I explore, I will never, never know it. 

It’s elusive, territorial, savage.

Were you living in Metter, Georgia when you were 7 years old? Are they fond memories?

7 year old JC with her dog Heidi. 

"I remember her death vividly, like it was yesterday."

I lived in Metter until age sixteen.

Childhood will always be a rich and magical place for me, a perfect mix of horror and happiness. 

I try to live there as much as possible.

Did you have a favorite teacher and are you still in touch with him or her?

Most of my teachers were interesting characters. My second-grade teacher, Mrs. Sanders, sticks out. She always played tricks on us, whoopie cushions, fake spilled coffee, all these curious props. At Halloween she had this witch named Marzilla that was as alive as you and me. That witch haunted us like crazy. She also spent a lot of extra time with me after school to help me understand math. And there was my fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Culbertson, who duct taped me to my desk to prevent me from turning around and talking to my neighbor. She, too, spent a lot of extra time with me after school to help me understand math. I couldn’t seem to grasp the concept of zero. And there was my eighth-grade history teacher, Mr. Williams, a quadriplegic who always bumped his wheelchair into our desks and would say things like, “Live and learn, die and burn.” I admired him a lot. And then there was my tenth-grade science teacher, Mr. Coleman. He had a glass eye and couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to compete in the Georgia state science fair after I’d won the county. The truth is my entire science project was complete fiction, even the bibliography. We touch each other every once in a while. This is making me very nostalgic.

Is there a book that changed the way you look at life?

Life has always been and will always remain miraculous and mysterious to me, however, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn provided me a lot of truth, answered some questions I constantly ask myself.

Everyone on the planet should read that book.

Do you have a favorite children’s book?
 Aesop’s Fables. I slept with that book as a child.

What are the funniest or most embarrassing stories your family tells about you?

My Daddy saw a U.F.O the night I was born. One day they thought they’d lost me in the woods, called a search party once it got pretty serious. They finally found me in a deep sleep with the rabbits in the rabbit cage. I nearly died of Salmonella from letting my pet turtle live in my mouth. I’d drink water out of the fish tank. These are a few.

Is there any message you want to give to or anything you want to say to your great-great, great grandchildren when they read this?

Use your manners.

How did you meet your husband? How did your first date go?

We met in a bar. He was half-breed mongrel, a mix of country boy and Korean. But he happened to love dogs and read Dylan Thomas. He drank gin and tonics, smoked Winston Reds, dated older women, could translate poetry from Latin to English. He also believed God didn’t give a shit about minor league baseball. He was in every sense of the word, exotic. However, I fought it like hell because he was nothing I ever imagined to marry.

We didn’t date. We started as buddies. His name is Thomas, but I called him Tom Cat and he called me Cro. We shut down bars talking literature and poetry, played mailbox baseball in high-end residential neighborhoods on James Island. One night we set off alarms and lights "army crawling" under a fence because for some odd reason I wanted to show him a legendary five-hundred-year-old oak tree in the middle of the night. His older girlfriends did not like me.

I’d been researching Siamese fighting fish for Gradle Bird and sent him some of my research, thinking since he was half Asian, he’d find it as fascinating as me. 


He suggested we lead a mass exodus of Betta Splendens from the local James Island Walmart and witness them fight firsthand.

So that night we went fishing with $3.99 a piece for two brilliant fighters in a pond of plastic cups. I picked out a teal Halfmoon I named Segundo and Tom Cat picked a red Apache he named Shine. He told me Splendens came from the Latin word splendeo, meaning shine.

We went back to his place and watched the two fish fight, and it was one of the most poetic, beautiful things both of us had ever seen, and I think right then and there we fell madly in love over a couple of fighting fish from Siam.

Tom Cat and his bride.

How would you say you are different now than you were in your 20’s.

No different. I believe we are born who we are.

What would constitute a “perfect” evening” for you?

Three a.m., home alone with a rainstorm and some fire, reading a really fine novel with two dogs curled up by my feet.

Were there parts in Gradle Bird that your editor cut that you hated to see go? If so, what were they?

My editor is a very smart man. He didn’t cut anything, which was fortunate for us both.

I have to add this from your website that I thought was fascinating. I also agreed with your choices of character photos:

It’s been 7 weeks since Gradle Bird‘s publication, and many people out on the road ask who I would envision playing the characters on the big screen. Part of my writing process involves finding photographs, cinematic stills of the characters I envision playing each role. I print them out and tape them over my writing desk, and I look to them for direction, guidance, and emotion.

For the creation of Gradle Bird, my writing desk looked like this:

Sally Mann, one of my favorite photographers said, “Every image is in some way a “portrait,” not in the way that it would reproduce the traits of a person, but in that it pulls and draws, in that it extracts something, an intimacy, a force.”

Below, the cast of characters and the cinematic stills that pulled and drew on me, that extracted the force behind Gradle Bird.

Gradle Bird = Natalie Portman (V for Vendetta)

Leonard Lee Spivey – Sam Elliott (Thank You for Smoking)

Annalee Spivey – The Beauty of Xiaohe (I don’t think she’s been in any movies)

D-5 Delvis Miles The Lone Singer – the one and only, E-5 Evans Miles The Lone Singer, if there were an actor for Delvis, it would be John C. Reilly.

Sonny Joe Stitch – Ryan Gosling (The Place Beyond the Pines)

Ceif ‘Tadpole’ Walker – Daniel Radcliffe (The Cripple of Inishmann)

And finally JC, in a short essay…………………………

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME

to any period from before recorded history to yesterday,

be safe from harm, be rich, poor or in-between, if appropriate to your choice,

actually, experience what it was like to live in that time, anywhere at all,

meet anyone, if you desire, speak with them, listen to them, be with them.

When would you go?

Where would you go?

Who would you want to meet?

And most importantly, why do you think you chose this time?

I would go now, to Metter, Georgia, back to when my Daddy was alive. I’d take Thomas and our two sons to his house and we’d sit in his bedroom by his bed and have him tell the story about Mickey the monkey. I chose this time because our boys never got to meet him. He was a legendary character, and I can only imagine the sound of their combined laughter.

Also love to go back to the Jurassic period and try and coexist with the dinosaurs. Animal behavior fascinates me, and I think it would be pretty spectacular to watch a Pterodactyl or a Brachiosaurus or a Liopleurodon.

       

   

Thanks JC, I don't think any of my authors have had quite a time switch in answering that question, but I loved it. I'd stay pretty clear of the Liopleurodon though, if I were you.

Beloved readers, enter the world of Gradle Bird, just out in paperback from  Koehler Books, trust me, you will love it. Pick one up at your local independent bookstore.