Susan Gregg Gilmore is the author of the new novel The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush. Her other books include Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen. She lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Q: What inspired you to write The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush, and how did you create your character Leonard?
A: I’m not sure this has ever happened before, but I can actually pinpoint the moment this book and this character started sprouting in my head.
I was teaching writing to teenagers at the Appalachian Young Writers Workshop at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee. At the beginning of the camp week, I walked the kids to a cemetery on campus. I told them they needed to develop a character from what they could find on a tombstone and what they could determine from the land around them.
There was one tombstone there that read, Leonard Bush’s Leg, 1912. I was hooked!
A few days later, I emailed the university asking what they knew about Leonard Bush. They told me only that he was 12 years old when he lost his leg. That was all I needed. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, even though I had been working on another novel for about a year at that point.
Q: The novel is set in a town in East Tennessee--how important is setting to you in your writing?
A: There’s thought that in Southern fiction, setting becomes character, too. For me, this has always been true. The setting really shapes all of my characters—who they are, what they do—just as our home, our land shapes us.
I, personally, love writing about setting—its shape, its smell, its feel, its very specific details. All of this really grounds a novel. It gives my characters the footing they need to live up to their full potential.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I never really know how a novel is going to end. I don’t start with an outline. Sometimes, I have a vague idea, but that was not the case in The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush, other than knowing that Leonard would find himself at peace with friends and family.
Sometimes, I’ll create outlines along the way of what has already been written for some added clarity. But for me, the not-knowing is the fun of the journey, letting the characters take me where they need to go.
Q: The writer Lee Smith called the book a “homespun Pilgrim's Progress”--what do you think of that description?
A: Flattered. Grateful. Pilgrim's Progress, the 1678 Christian allegory by John Bunyan, is, very simplified, about travelers on life’s journey, learning from their mistakes as they grow in their faith. In fact, their faith development is dependent on this journey.
And I think that’s true of Leonard and all those in his East Tennessee world that come to him looking for absolution. They are all on a journey, hoping for peace, salvation, understanding.
Interestingly, I’ve also heard Leonard compared to Ted Lasso. Someone once called him the Ted Lasso of Appalachia. And I think that fits, too. He is this positive, upbeat child who leads, perhaps unknowingly, those around him to greater self-discovery.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Two things: I’ve been writing some pieces of flash fiction. I love the form — the challenge of telling a story with less than 1,000 or 500 words. It’s great fun.
I’m also working on the sequel to my first novel, Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen. Something I never thought I’d do. But I was struggling with my writing and found comfort with old friends.
Recently, a couple of other ideas have started percolating, but for now, I’m enjoying time with Catherine Grace.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Oh my. Let me think. Well, something I don’t talk about often is how hard this book was to write. At least the first four years. I just couldn’t focus. And my writing reflected that. I had to throw away so many drafts, always certain the next one would be it. Then to realize it was not.
I finally turned to a very talented writing teacher and friend who told me simply that I was telling the wrong story. It was that advice and enrolling myself in one of her writing workshops that led to the book I have now. It was a seven-year journey—a faith journey of its own kind. But so well worth it.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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