The Grass Sweeper God

 

Please help me give a warm welcome to author Doug Howery and his Historical Fiction novel, The Grass Sweeper God. Doug will be awarding a $25.00 Amazon GC and an autographed copy of the book to one randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Please note geographical restrictions apply. United States only for the physical prize. For his other tour stops and more chances to win, please click on the banner above, which will take you to his Goddess Fish tour page 🙂

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sixteen-year-old Smiley Hanlon is a young woman tethered to a young man’s body.  In the 1950’s Appalachia coal fields of Solitude, Virginia, Smiley is placed in the “Mentally Retarded Class” because he is effeminate and wears a blouse and saddle shoes to school.

Smiley is backed by his best friend, Lee Moore who protects Smiley from a father and many townspeople who hate him.  Smiley has dreams of becoming an entertainer.  Raised by his aunt in a juke joint, as a child Smiley sings and dances on the Formica bar top into the wee hours.  Chosen as the female lead, Dorothy, in a new town production called Dorothy of Oz Coal Camp, his dream is being realized.  The triumph of the play and his dream is sabotaged by his father and classmate bullies culminating in a tragic and horrific moment that changes both Smiley and Lee, forever.

Smiley and Lee flee to NYC.  They learn that prejudice is prejudice whether in the coal fields of Virginia or on the streets of NYC. Smiley suffers at the hands of his real mother who is a religious zealot.  She tries to change who Smiley is because he is a boil on the body of Christ. Lee suffers at the hands of psychologists who practice Aversion Therapy-electric shock treatment to cure his homosexuality.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.  Both Smiley and Lee become forces of change as do countless others.  In 1969, Smiley Hanlon and his friend, Lee emerge as leaders of a gay revolution, the historical Stonewall Riots.  The riots are vicious but the real battle will be won or lost on another continent: Solitude, Virginia.

The Grass Sweeper God is a force of nature that flows through all things…straightens out that which is bent…which is sick…

From the author:

My Novel, “The Grass Sweeper God” Book Discussion

It may be clichéd to state this, but prose is our baby, our child that we send out into the world. We wait around to see if we’ve raised that child right. And what comes back to us in the form of rejection or acceptance does affect us on so many different levels. It does speak to the core of our being.

As an author, I will never forget my very first Amazon book review. The perceptive, insightful and thought provoking review literally brought me to tears as I read it.

I gasped and immediately choked up as I read the very first lines:

‘“The Grass Sweeper God” is a hard book to read, harder still to imagine someone living it. Ripped from the heart of what can only be an echo of personal experience and pain, this account speaks of unsinkable souls, lost identities and struggling to be who you are meant to be…”’

Heather had nailed it. She went straight to the core of the story, straight to the core of the premise. I knew she had actually read the book. I knew it had affected her in more than a precursory way. Up and until that point, my story had never been validated by the public.

I’ve often wondered what if my very first Amazon review had been negative as I later experienced. How would that have affected me? I like to think that I am strong with a thick hide. However, after my initial reaction to her beautiful review, I discovered just how vulnerable I am to critiques when it comes to my prose. I’d like to say I’m vulnerable to emotion because the story is so personal to me because of my mother’s suicide. The story is based upon her suicide in 1982.

The following is an excerpt of my book, “The Grass Sweeper God” that reflects and parallels the visceral feelings of “acceptance” and, or “rejection” when we send our children out into the world in “book” form or real life:

Exceprt:

Lettie sat on the twin bed with the gun and the letter in her lap.  She noticed Brac’s graduation picture sitting on the nightstand.  She turned it face down.  She placed the love letter from Brac’s lover on top of his graduation picture.  She placed Ted’s bankbook, her letter to Ted, her cat-eyeglasses and dentures beside Brac’s turned-down picture.  She lay down on the bed.  She stretched out and placed the gun at her side and stared at the ceiling.  She thought about her children.  She had never owned them, never owned herself, and now they could choose their own road in life.  But she could choose when to exit this world and how.  She had to get out of her head, out of her heart.  Tears like the mistakes she had made in life flowed down her face.  She put the gun under her ribs and pulled the trigger.

About the Author:

DOUG HOWERY has been writing both fiction and essays since 1990. His essays and familial stories have appeared in The Blue Ridge Lambda Press.
In many of his stories, as in “The Grass Sweeper God,” Mr. Howery’s true lode, his font of inspiration is in the passion and suffering he has experienced.

Author, Doug Howery penned the novel with insight into his own struggle for sexual identity and personal tragedy. His mother committed suicide in 1982, blaming her two sons’ sexual identity in a letter and declaring herself a martyr for intolerance and social bigotry. She referred to her own sons as “Gutter Rats that Could Rot in Hell” and represents the hate and mistrust that have plagued society.
Suspense author, Maggie Grace, with the North Carolina Writers’ Network writes about her cohort Mr. Howery: “What I like is the riskiness, the cutting edge of the narrative voice we hear. The moments when he lapses into descriptions of the moon, of the horse, etc. are true poetry that offers some relief from the coarseness of the story, and he places them well. He has an ear for the rhythm of the story, a natural sense of when to end–hangs fire with a new way of looking at someone or something, turning the entire chapter on its ear. I like the way he makes it impossible for the reader to stop reading at the end of the chapter.”
Mr. Howery lives in Virginia with his partner of 34 years where he is at work on his next novel.

 

Links:

 

Buy @ Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Grass-Sweeper-God-Doug-Howery-ebook/dp/B00JMVE036?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

 

Twitter:

https://www.twitter.com/@dhowery1

 

Goodreads:  

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8087260.Doug_Howery

 

Facebook:  

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Grass-Sweeper-God/1475772659315049#!/pages/The-Grass-Sweeper-God/1475772659315049

 

Book Website:

http://www.dhowery-book.com

 

Book Video Trailer:  

https://youtu.be/Bz6bNcZ6p4E

 

Linkedin:  

https://www.linkedin.com/in/doug-howery-90bb975a