Thursday, August 6, 2020

Kim Powers--Are There Bookstores in Heaven?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Sometimes it's a funny old small world, isn't it? Take my guest today, Kim Powers, award-winning television news writer (Senior Writer for ABC's 20/20,) playwright, novelist, graduate of Yale School of Drama, all of which sounds so glamorous and cosmopolitan. (Which it is!)

But Kim grew up right here in the town where I live in north Texas, which is also where my husband grew up. My husband rode his bike to the same Saturday matinees as Kim, at the Ritz Theater on the town square, and I'm sure they both got ice cream at the local Dairy Queen, and swam in the same pool. Kim and I also went to the same small north Texas college--in fact, we are both Distinguished Alumni, and have taught a writing workshop together there. (Yay, Austin College! Go Roos!)  So it is an extra special thrill for me to introduce Kim and his marvelous new book, RULES FOR BEING DEAD, which is getting such terrific buzz.


Kristopher Zygorski of Bolo Books opens his review with this: "Every season or so, there’s a book that seemingly comes out of the blue that manages to knock our socks off. Rules for Being Dead is that book for the Summer of 2020." And he adds, "If you threw The Lovely Bones, Cinema Paradiso, and Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story into a blender the result would look something like Rules for Being Dead, but even that doesn’t fully express the bounty of treasures within. " 

Kim will tell you more!

 
                    ARE THERE BOOKSTORES IN HEAVEN?

          Because if there are, I’m screwed. My father (and I don’t mean my Heavenly Father) is possibly not going to like what I’ve written about him in my new novel RULES FOR BEING DEAD. My whole family–and sadly, most of them are up there by now–won’t necessarily be too happy about it, because I’ve opened up the closet and finally let out all the long-held family secrets. In fact, I use this George Bernard Shaw epigraph at the front of the book: “If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.” I also use this, from Ricky Ricardo: “Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!” Taken together, they give you a sense of what you’re in for--I Love Lucy Solves a Mystery.
        
The book’s original title might give you a further clue: The Movies We Watched (The Year My Father Killed My Mother.) Pretty much cuts to the chase, doesn’t it? I work at ABC News and have always been taught “don’t bury the lede.” (That’s news spell for “lead.”) I changed the title for a few reasons, in large part because it gave away the whole story—or what I thought was the whole story--before you even got to the copyright page. The second reason is that Chris Cuomo told me to. 


Years ago, he was co-anchor of ABC’s 20/20, where I’m senior writer. He loved my first book, a memoir called The History of Swimming –“Why don’t you write like that every week for ME?”—but winced when I told him the name of my then work-in-progress. “Not a lot of grace in that, my man.” He’s big on grace (and saying “my man.”) Was it his Catholicism talking, or just general humanity? Whatever, he had a point. I changed the title. I needed some grace as I dove into this autobiographical family novel about the very sad and mysterious death of my mother, and all the other sad and mysterious things that came after it. But the initial facts of the story remained: I did watch a lot of movies that year (every Saturday afternoon at The Ritz in McKinney, where our beloved Deborah Crombie now lives!!) and I did come to think my father killed my mother. Several other people in my family did too. 
         The first draft of the book, with that HE KILLED HER, Y’ALL! title (not my finest moment, I admit) was told entirely from the point of nine-year-old Clarke Perkins, a stand in for little me, trying to play boy detective and figure out what really happened. Some people thought suicide; my older brother and aunt thought murder–by my very own father. At one point, I even asked my stepmother if he had done it, and she said, “Why bother asking? It won’t bring your mother back. Let sleeping dogs lie.” She didn’t say it meanly, she said it sadly, which made it sound like even more of an answer.
         But Clarke got boring, all by himself–do you want to read 297 pages of precocious?--so I started adding new voices to the narrative: my father; Rita (the new girlfriend-turned-stepmother); and last of all, my dead mother herself, floating around in the ether, playing a middle-aged Nancy Drew and trying to remember what happened. (Whenever I begin thinking of the book as a memoir, it hits me that you can’t have a dead woman flying around with little angel wings IN A MEMOIR.) Draft by draft, I added the “grace” that Chris Cuomo was talking about. Rita wasn’t just “the other woman” or the “cruel stepmother,” but a disappointed woman who’s already buried one alcoholic husband, is trying to run the shoe repair store he left her saddled with, and slaps on too much eye shadow and hair spray to try to make things better. L.E, the father, wasn’t just a drunk and a womanizer, but a victim of aching poverty and neglect, growing up in a shack in the frozen Vermont backwoods. A kid who almost died after being run over by a semi-track while trying to sell Christmas trees to make extra money for his family. That’s not fiction. That’s real. That’s grace. (His, not mine.) Creola, the mother, wasn’t just crazy, but someone with undiagnosed bi-polar disease, looking for salvation in religion. That’s why she attacked my father with a giant cast iron skillet, while screaming that the Great Apostle Paul told her to do it.  
        Rita. L.E. Creola. Those are their real names. When my editor first saw my dedication, “In memory of my two mothers, Creola Perkins Powers and Rita Cobb Powers,” I think she was a little bit taken aback. Did I really want to go there, invite all those inevitable questions of “did this really happen?” Even though I’d made no bones about the autobiographical nature of the book, that dedication said there was no turning back. This was my story. This was their story. I’ve given them names (literally) and voices that wouldn’t have been heard otherwise, these people we all know, these people we all are, just trying to do our best and make it from one day to the next. Now that I’m an adult, I understand that struggle all too well.
         And I finally know what killed my mother.           
        Will it make them famous in heaven, having their names in a book? (Talk about an overcrowded field up there!) I hope so. That would make me feel better, because it’s hard enough worrying about the living people in the book, let alone the dead people. (Is it just me, or does everyone who writes memoir or autobiographical fiction worry about this, along with the “little” things like “will anyone actually buy the book?” It’s one thing to go back home for a book tour, where everyone knows your business, but factor in what they’re thinking in the afterlife….I guess you can take the boy out of Texas, but you can’t take the Southern Baptist out of the boy.) They deserve it, some “me” time, some loving attention, after everything I’ve put them through. After everything RULES FOR BEING DEAD might put them through. I hope to find out one day, when I see my family again and nervously ask, “So…read any good books lately?” 

DEBS: Mystery, memoir, literary novel, ghost story, RULES FOR BEING DEAD has it all, and Kim will give away a copy to a commenter on today's blog! 

Readers, if you had an obsession when you were ten, what was it?

And Kim, here's a bit of nostalgia for you! McKinney's Ritz Theater!

 



Kim Powers is a two-time Emmy winner and author of the novels Capote in Kansas: A Ghost Story and the thriller Dig Two Graves, as well as the critically acclaimed memoir The History of Swimming, a Barnes & Noble “Discover” Book and Lambda Literary Award finalist for Best Memoir of the Year. Powers is also the Senior Writer for ABC’s 20/20, part of the team that has received an unprecedented three consecutive Edward R. Murrow Awards. A native Texan, he received an MFA from the Yale School of Drama and lives in New York City and Asbury Park, NJ.   

It’s the late 1960s in small-town McKinney, Texas. At the local downtown theater, movies—everything from James Bond to Beach Blanket Bingo, Alfie to Dr. Zhivago--feed the obsessions of ten-year-old Clarke Perkins. But when his beloved mother mysteriously dies, no one will tell him what happened. No one will tell HER either. She’s left to float above trees and drive-in movie screens, trapped between life and death, searching for the truth. Neither mother nor son can rest until they know the final answer about a time and place long gone. 

Darkly humorous and incredibly moving, Rules for Being Dead is reminiscent of The Lovely Bones and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, with a touch of Larry McMurtry and Mark Childress.)
 

83 comments:

  1. Congratulations, Kim, on your newest book . . . after reading this, I can’t wait to read the book! [As for bookstores in heaven . . . wouldn’t that be lovely?]

    I can’t claim much of an obsession when I was ten, unless it was getting as many books as possible out of the library . . . .

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    1. I think bookstores ARE Heaven. When I go, I'll probably just wind up at the nearest Barnes & Noble. Or maybe Heaven is where all the Borders stores went?

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    2. The Ritz movie theater and the local library were both part of my regular Saturday afternoon. My father - LE from above - would come home for lunch from his job on the downtown McKinney town square, then take my twin brother and me back with him. We worked in trips both the library where the stack of books I checked out was usually as tall as I was, and then whatever was playing at The Ritz. Then we'd wait at his store until he got off for the day, no doubt creating havoc, until he went back home at the end of the day!

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  2. Congrats on the new book. Yes, this title works much better. :)

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    1. Thanks so much!! I love coming up with titles. At one point, some sales reps for my wonderful publisher, Blair Publishing, thought the current title was maybe too YA or supernatural; they wanted a change to RULES FOR DYING, which to me, sounded too much like a self-help book. So publications still even have that title - but then a NEW set of reps said, NO! This first title is great and so intriguing. So good judgment prevailed and we went back to what I think and hope is a very intriguing/provocative title!

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    2. So glad wiser heads prevailed, Kim! It's a great title!

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    3. This will sound nasty, but I don't mean it to be: at one point when RULES FOR DYING was floating around, I said, "It sounds too much like a Mitch Albom book." And then I realized, wait, Mitch Albom SELLS MILLIONS OF BOOKS!! KEEP IT!!

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  3. WOW! Amazing story. At 10 I was already escaping from family by reading. That year I read and re-read “Little Women”. I still cry when Beth dies. I will suggest to my book group that we read this book next time we are able to meet.

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    1. Promise you won't judge me when I make this horrible confession: I have seen every movie version of Little Women but I have NEVER read the book!! I'm awful, I know...

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    2. Ow, Kim!! Read the book! Especially since most of the earlier movies are so sappy, and the book is sharp and funny and quite acerbic.

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    3. I know. It was the latest Greta Gerwig version that made me see some of that grit, and made me think Okay, Kim, a few holes to fill in your reading education!!

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    4. And then read “Jo’s Boys” which I remember as being great fun. But no details remain from third grade binge read in the mid-1950s.

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  4. I always love a story with a southern spin. I’m not sure if I was 10 or a bit older but I was obsessed with going to Egypt to see the pyramids and mummies. I was trying to figure out a way to stow away on a plane. Actually that part was a game I was playing with a classmate: how to get to Egypt from Houston, Texas with no money.

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    1. Pat, I was obsessed with Egypt, too! My grandmother and spent hours reading about the tombs and the pyramids and planning trips!

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    2. Me three!! Obsessed with Egypt - which shows my age. It was third grade and I think the first King Tut exhibit had just come to the States and was BIG NEWS. Plus they added a King Tut character (played by the incredible Victor Buono) on Batman and that was even BIGGER NEWS. I wanted to be an archaeologist - but even more, because it was a fancier word - I wanted to be an EGYPTOLOGIST. Probably in late grade school, I read Zilpha Keatley Snyder's (what a name, right?) beautiful book THE EGYPT GAME, which introduced a mystery into that world. In fact, her books were probably my gateway into reading mysteries (along with Phyllis A. Whitney.) But I've STILL never been to Egypt!!

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    3. Kim, I went to the King Tut exhibit with my grandmother. I still have the gorgeous book!

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    4. It was all I could think about and I spent all my time drawing mummies and sarcophagi!! And then FINALLY saw the real thing itself on our last trip to London, in the British Museum. And dying to go back to London, by the way, as I'm sure you are!!

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  5. Well Kim, you know I loved this book. I’m not sure I made it clear in my review (might have do some more editing), but the overriding greatness of the book is its humanity. The reader is able to look at each character and have some understanding of why they do what they do, or as you said, we’re all just trying to get by. The reader can feel that. I do remember I put in my review that Rita shows us that we can’t put a type on who would have an affair. I think Rules for Being Dead is such a special book, and it’s a brave act of love and compassion on your part. I hope the ten-year-old Kim that still dwells within you feels good about it. He should.

    When I was ten, I was scheming with my best friend Jimmy how to get into the Deerfield (name of area of houses where we lived) Deers. The Deerfield Deers was a neighborhood club that the older kids were in, including my brother and his sister. Our siblings raised the age to join whenever Jimmy and I reached it. We never did get in. So, I turned to reading and was happy the elders let us join in for cops and robbers on our bikes.

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    1. Kathy, I certainly did get that from your review, which was so wonderful. You wouldn't believe the dozens of drafts that book went through (literally over the course of 15 years) to get it right. And the enormous sea change those characters did too, especially Rita. Early readers have said she almost changed the most along the way, and it wasn't about me changing the character, it was about me finding some grown-up humanity to write her in an honest and loving way. She, in many ways, saved us, and I'm glad I got to write this tribute to her.

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  6. His sister should read Jimmy’s sister. Oops.

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  7. I very much want to read this now! Thank you for sharing your process. I wrote one memoir - A year in Ouagadougou - about living in Burkina Faso with husband and kids, but it's still in the proverbial drawer.

    Ten. I think I was obsessed with horses. Unlike Hank, we didn't have any at home. I mastered drawing them, I knew all the parts of their bodies, I rode my first one at Girl Scout camp. I asked for one every year for Christmas and couldn't understand why we couldn't have one (in our suburban Pasadena-area large back yard). (Hint: a family of six living on one high-school teacher's salary was part of the answer.)

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    1. Oh, and reading books about horses and writing stories about them, too!

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    2. Thanks so much!! It's interesting being in this "nether world" between fiction and memoir. My first book was a memoir called THE HISTORY OF SWIMMING, which deal with some of this but was mainly about my twin brother. But what I thought had happened to my mother was in it as well. When all this new material started coming out, I just didn't have the strength to go through another memoir, but wanted to approach the material a little more poetically, and really give my mother a voice, which I couldn't do in memoir (especially because in the new book, she's floating around in limbo, also trying to figure out how she died!)

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  8. Kim, congratulations on your book!

    As for any obsession I had as a ten year old, if I did have them they probably revolved around either comic books (and all things superhero) or Star Wars.

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  9. Congratulations, Kim. I already have your book in my TBR stack. You can thank Kristopher for that. His review was great!

    When I was ten I was in love with Prince Phillip, pretty sure that if I met him, he would ditch the Queen for me. We all know how that worked out. I was also intrigued with kidnappings, probably because of Bobby Greenlease in nearby Kansas City, and I read everything I could find about famous ones. My cousin, Ernest Kirkpatrick, was involved in the delivery of the ransom money for his employer, Charles Urschel. I remember meeting Cousin Ernest once, and when he shook my hand, he left a twenty dollar bill in it. That was a fortune back in the day. My mother took it and I never saw it again!

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    1. Wow! That's quite a story! Reminds me of my way-too-young obsession with In Cold Blood; there's a scene in my book where I try to check it out of the local library and the librarian (Mrs. Jerry Lewis - no kidding!) called him "That fruitcake Truman Capote." (I wrote a novel about Truman and Harper Lee called "Capote in Kansas: A Ghost Story".)
      And I owe EVERYTHING to Kristopher who's early heralding of the book got so many readers interested!!

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  10. Powerful. And I do hope there are bookstores in heaven. I can't help but wonder if writing this book brought peace to ten year old Kim. I hope so.

    At ten I was obsessed with becoming a writer and solving mysteries like Nancy Drew. I got the writer part, but the only mysteries I solve are on the page - then again, that's how Nancy solved hers, too.

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    1. So kind. Thank you very much. And it has brought peace to ten year old Kim - and OLD Kim as well! Can't say too much without a lot of spoiler alerts, but the resolution I found in real life - and that little Clarke finds in the book - is a satisfying one.

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    2. I'm looking forward to learning it as well.

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  11. Congrats on the book, Kim. It sounds fascinating.

    Ten. What was I doing at ten? A lot of reading, I know that much.

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    1. How much did reading save all of us? I don't really remember being TAUGHT to read - I just know it has been with me as long as I can remember.

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  12. Reading every book in the children's room at the library and solving mysteries...and walking to the Rialto for Saturday afternoon movies.

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    1. Me too. I was really into puppetry when I was a kid and constantly checking out books about puppets. And I remember trying to check out the play of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" - which I vaguely knew was this play, but also got sort of mixed up with the big bad woolf, and the librarian not letting me because it was too "grown up."!

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  13. Wow, striking post, Kim!Writing this must have been quite an emotional roller coaster for you. It's horrible when something tragic happens, but even worse when the event is clouded in uncertainty. I can't say I remember being obsessed with anything when I was 10. Congratulations on your new release!

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    1. Thanks so much. But in a bizarre way, I approach it by observing it and processing it as an actor. I spent a lot of time in high school and college acting, and thinking that's what I wanted to do professionally, so that's the way I write - almost observing myself on stage playing it out. And as emotional as it gets, it weirdly adds a protective layer. But I also love digging straight to the heart of something, and really writing emotionally - that's the kind of work I like the most - that I just know it's the price to be paid. And then the catharsis is that I've put it out there for someone else and in a way can sort of leave it behind.

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  14. I'm in. I want to read this book now, Kim. Just talking to my older sister the other day and was struck by how our memories of certain things are totally different. Am I remembering wrong? Did we just experience the same thing so drastically differently? I don't know. The past can be a quagmire sometimes.

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    1. It's so true. And the book is now such a blend of fact and imagination that I sometimes have a problem separating them. Sadly, I don't have any family still around to "fact check" with - but it's fascinating when I talk to old friends and they bring up things I've completely forgotten - when I pride myself on never forgetting anything! And putting it in a book!

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  15. Kim Powers, welcome to Jungle Reds and Congratulations on your new novel! By coincidence, I met another Kim Powers from Texas who is a Deaf-Blind woman. Yes, she also worked as a tv reporter for a Deaf TV show. I think she was profiled on Deaf MOSAIC, which was on the Discovery Channel. She looked like that actress Caren Kaye (sp?)

    What was my obsession when I was 10 years old? Movies. I would peruse movie magazines. And ask a lot of questions like which movie was Jackie Kennedy Onassis in? That's when I found out that she was not an actress, but was married to President Kennedy. Although I liked to read books, I did not become a big reader until recently.

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    1. Thanks so much!! And what makes being here today even more special is being welcomed by Deborah Crombie, who as she wrote lives in McKinney now - a very different one from the one I grew up in!! But that old town square is still there!
      And wow - another one of me! There's another Kim Powers, a woman, who was a contestant on the tv show Survivor at some point - I used to get email for her!!

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  16. Wonderful book which is captivating and unique. At ten years old I was an avid reader and that was my entire life.

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    1. Thanks so much for taking a look!! And thank God we all have reading now to keep us busy while so many are still in lockdown!! It's helping me get through I know!!

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  17. Congratulations on the book, Kim! It sounds exactly like my style. But to answer about bookstores in heaven, I would say not, because where would you keep your money? Doubt we'd have packets and don't even get me started about banks in heaven. Maybe banks would be in the other place. But I'm guessing there would be libraries; hoping there are libraries!

    Ten is a wonderful age, not really a little kid any more but old enough to question adult things going on around us. Or if not questioning, at least misunderstanding them. I think I was ten when I was obsessed with collecting pictures of movie starts. Easy-peasy to send off a letter to name of star, Hollywood, California. I had quite a wonderful collection. I especially remembering requesting one from Marilyn Monroe but I wasn't sure how to spell her name. My grandmother must not have realized my intention when she spelled out Maryland, or maybe she was just having fun, but I did receive a picture in any case.

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    1. The Lovely Bones was one of the first books that really made me think of what heaven might be like, separate from what my early years at North Baptist Church in McKinney drilled into me! And earthbound thing that I am, I still envision it as something like earth with streets and buildings, just better!! And nobody has to pay for anything!!

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  18. Kim, I've heard such wonderful things about this book--not just from Deb!--that I can't wait to read it. As a transplant to McKinney myself, I'll give you a macabre bit of conversation you might find amusing. I was filling out forms at my bank and chatting about houses with the young lady assisting me. I had just bought a place on a street named after city father Isaac Graves. But when I told her, "I live on Graves," she was shocked and horrified, thinking I lived on *graves*--that my house had been built on an old cemetery. I don't think she was from here.

    And, Rhys, I owe you a big congratulations and a small apology for not being able to be here yesterday for your book launch. I always like Lady Georgie stories, and the book sounds like tons of fun! I wish you much success with it.

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    1. Welcome to a fellow McKinney-ite! Even thought I left it decades ago, clearly it has never left me, since I keep going back to it in so much of my writing. And you'll get a kick in the book that the dead mother character, Creola, wanders around the cemetery at night, looking for other ghosts who might be wandering around, because she's so lonely.

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    2. One of my favorites - my "people" are in the old Cottage Hill cemetery near Prosper, which always creeped me out because all I could thing of was Cottage Cheese, which I hated!
      And then my dad and Rita are in the "nouveau riche" Turrentine Jackson Cemetery, which I associate with getting divinity candy at the Stuckey's down the street from it!!

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    3. Kim, congratulations again. I loved your book. It brought back so many memories. Thanks for Rhonda Rip, she was so talented. Question: Most of the things you mentioned i remember but how in the world did you document it all. 15 years of editing it i am sure probably had something to do with it. There are things you mentioned in the book i thought how in the world did he remember to include that?
      Congratulations from a Mckinney Lion!

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  19. Congratulations Kim! What a fascinating post and story. Cinema Paradiso is my ultimate favorite movie. Your book is amazing and memorable. At ten I was obsessed with Perry Como. I wanted a photo of him and received a black and white photo which I cherished.

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    1. Thanks so much! Love Cinema Paradiso. The other day the composer of the score, Ennio Morricone, died, and I listed to the soundtrack all day long. There's also more than a hint of The Last Picture Show in it - which was a hugely influential movie and book to me.

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  20. Congratulations on your new book, Kim, and on all of the buzz it is generating. Childhood impressions can be so strong, and childhood events do color our lives, whether we want them to or not. I am in awe of how you have used this personal tragedy to create something so profoundly universal. And, I admire how you have been able to make your life so productive in spite of your painful background and questions that remain.

    At ten, I think I was obsessed by lots of things, perhaps mostly by romantic love like you'd see on the big screen. Gorgeous movie stars made it seem so achievable. It took many years to sort all of that out, and I am still a sucker for a really good, not too sappy, romantic film.

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    1. I feel like I remember my childhood much more vividly than I do just a few years ago!! At one point in the writing of this, I literally wrote out every childhood memory I had, many of them in connection to movies I had seen at the Ritz. There's a Eudora Welty quote I use a lot - and I'm just giving you the gist - but it's something like, "If you survive a Southern childhood, you'll have enough material to write about for the rest of your life." AND IT'S SO TRUE!!

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  21. Kim, I can't wait to read this book after loving DIG TWO GRAVES.

    As I recall, one of my obsessions at age 10 was wanting to grow up to be a shoe salesman at Shapiro's in Philadelphia because they had one of those cool X-ray (?) machines where you could see the bones in your foot. Go figure! Of course, I also wanted to work in a book store or library so I could read books all day (and get paid for it? hmmm . . . wonder where I got that idea).

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    1. How fun to find a GRAVES fan!! I had originally written that as a screenplay but when I couldn't get anything going with it, decided the story was too good to let go. I fashioned it into a book - the one pure "mystery/thriller" I've written - although all of my books have (I think) a sense of suspense that keeps you turning pages. Essentially, just solving the mystery of life!

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  22. Kim, reading this all I can say is WOW. I am always looking for that one book that just can’t be defined, that grabs me by the throat

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    1. Rhys!! Thanks so much - and congrats to you too!! A new book is always such a cause of celebration, and they're all damn hard to write!! I think the great thing about the book, which wasn't intentional, it just happened - is that it has so many genres in it. Mystery, suspense, family, coming of age, a ghost story, a mother/son relationship, some LGBT elements, Texan Gothic, Southern Gothic! And there's even a kitchen sink!!

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  23. Kim, my copy arrived this morning!! And Rhys, yours, too!!! Yay!

    When I was ten I read all the time (gee, that's a surprise in this group) and was obsessed with horses. And rocks. I collected rocks. That was my geologist phase. What a nerdy kid...

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    1. Well, and didn't it continue into college? and nerds rock - which I'm sure all of us here ARE and can SUPPORT.

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    2. Yes, it definitely did! It was the geek school:-)

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  24. Suddenly I am reading all about this book and it is definitely one I must read. Families and their secrets, right? I don't think we ever suspected anyone of murder in our family (yet) but there is my great-grandmother who was said to have committed 3 husbands to asylums. Not a woman to mess with. I had access to the books my mother and grandmother read from a young age, so mystery and true crime (and sometimes books like Peyton Place, which did have a murder, after all) were always part of my reading life. This sounds just riveting, can't wait to read it.

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    1. Thanks so much!! I can't tell you how many times I heard "don't tell" as a child, and now realize if only someone HAD TOLD, how much better things would have been! I'm not a parent myself, so I'm not sure how protective or selective I would have been, but honesty is the best policy sounds pretty good to me!! My older brother kept us from going to our mother's funeral - I can literally hear him saying "the boys wouldn't understand" - and I SHOULD have said "Oh the boys understand a lot more than you think!'

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  25. I'm excited to read a book set in my hometown (where I continue to live, but it sure has changed). This sounds compelling. Thank you for the chance to win. Dmskrug3 at hotmail dot com

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    1. Oh, and at the age of 10 I was obsessed with my teddy bear collection

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    2. Wow! Exciting. I know a few writers who've written autobiographically, but have given made-up names to their locations. Somehow that never even occurred to me. And yes, the McKinney of TODAY is wildly different than the Mayberry RFD sort of place I grew up in - but clearly a lot more was going on there than was apparent!

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  26. Certainly not your everyday story line!
    Sounds fascinating.
    Well done, Kim.

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    1. Thanks so much! It certainly stands out amongst a lot of the storylines out there!!

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  27. “Rule For Being Dead” — wow! Just wow! Were the world different right now (no COVID, no living where Isaias knocked out power to half the town), I would not have read this wonderful essay or any of these comments. Nope, I would be in my car on the way to the bookstore — or maybe half way home again — for this book that I have to read. And yes, it was all the title that grabbed me. Thank you, Kim Powers.

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  28. So fantastic to hear!! Two sides of the coin, right? I would have gone to a few bookstores, although certainly didn't have the budget for much. But while I'm still working from home, remotely for ABC, it is a bit of a relaxed schedule. The book got delayed from May until now, so that gave me about 4 or 5 extra months to do a lot of marketing work, with direct reach out to indie bookstores, etc. So a horrible thing, the pandemic, but we've made some of the limits work for us. And I've also been able to participate in so many more book events that I couldn't have because or prohibitive travel! And we all need to read to keep ourselves busy. We binged on everything goo in the first few weeks - so books have come in to save the day!

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  29. I don't think you will have any problem selling this book. It sounds fascinating.
    As far as I can remember my 10 year old obsessions were reading, dancing outside with my friends (I had to haul my record player out to the front steps, yes I'm that old) and The Partridge Family.
    I can't wait to read this!

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    1. "Bless your heart" I'd say if I were in Texas - and I'll STILL say it!! It's like throwing your fates to the wind when you launch a book, esp in these crazy times. And I was a big Partridge Fan as well!!

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  30. Thanks to my Mother, by the age of 10 I was a big reader. My Mom was a big reader, and I remember a lot of bus trips with Mom to go to the library for books to read. So, by 10 I was obsessed with books and I still have the same obsession.

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  31. My mom was a 4th grade teacher, and it would seem natural to think she taught me to read, but the little I can remember I think it was actually my older brother (12 years older.) But I was one of the show-offs at the library, always winning in book contests and stuff like that. And continuing to love library time even through grad school. Feel sort of sorry for younger people who didn't grow up with that tradition and now rely almost solely on the internet rather than the wonder of discoveries you make in the stacks!!

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  32. Oh, oh, running in SO late! But Kim knows how much I adore this book--it unique and wonderful, and I was so honored to read an early copy. YAAY!!!

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    1. You're excused, young lady. You've been quite busy TOPPING EVERY BOOK LIST THAT EXISTS!!!

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  33. Oh, and at 10? I wanted to be an airline stewardess. OR anything that had to do with horses. Or fashion design. I also wanted to be Donna Parker. Remember those books?

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    1. My older brother left our house littered with a few old Donna Parkers and Cherry Ames - which you mention in your new book!! Loved discovering them after I had gone through all the Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys that were in the house!

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  34. It is interesting how your perspective can change from a young age until you are in your 50's. Your book sounds very interesting for the reader as well as being very cathartic for you. Definitely, a win for both the readers and for you.
    At 10, my dad and stepmother had a place in Fairview (close to McKinney) Texas. We went to church in McKinney. I would sleep in those prickly brush rollers with the plastic pins so it would look nice for church. They also had ponies. My stepbrothers, brother, and I would jump off of the barn and climb through barb wire fences for fun. I remember singing to the Partridge Family's I think I love you song while sitting on a silver metal gate. I had their first album until we had a basement flood a few years ago. I also loved Nancy Drew mysteries and spending the afternoon at the Richardson Public library. My mom lived in Richardson.

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  35. We had similar childhoods - except for the brush rollers -- although I'm sure I would have used them if I could - I had pretty long hair and always laid out my "church clothes" the night before, to make sure I looked good for God too!! Thanks for writing in!

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