Tell the Rest

Lucy Jane Bledsoe

Description

• Publicize to national TV, radio, major dailies, weeklies, blogs, LGBTQ magazines, and women’s glossy magazines.
• Expanded outreach to Northern California media, bookstores, and libraries (the author lives in the Bay Area)
• Outreach to LGBTQ+ bookstores
• Excerpts in literary journals
• Events in San Francisco, Berkeley, Portland, etc.
• Submission to key literary book fairs, including LA Times Festival of Books, Bay Area Book Festival, Brooklyn Book Festival, and Miami Book Fair.
• Giveaways on LibraryThing 
• Submission to all applicable awards

• Bledsoe's most recent novel, The Evolution of Love, was a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award for Fiction and the Lambda Literary Award
• Bledsoe's fiction has won a Yaddo Fellowship, the 2013 Saturday Evening Post Fiction Award, the Arts & Letters Fiction Prize, the Sherwood Anderson Prize for Fiction, a Pushcart nomination, a California Arts Council Fellowship, an American Library Association Stonewall Award, and two National Science Foundation Artists & Writers Fellowships.
  
• Bledsoe's previous work has received praise from the New York Times, Ms., San Francisco Chronicle, Toronto Star, etc.

Two estranged childhood friends find themselves on parallel paths to return to the site of the conversion therapy camp that tore them apart.

"Two conversion therapy survivors go back to the site of their trauma, hoping the truth will set them free . . . This satisfyingly nuanced story tackles sexuality and spiritual abuse, offering connection and redemption." 
—Kirkus Reviews, STARRED Review

"Award-winning author Lucy Jane Bledsoe's latest novel is focused on the life-saving friendship—and escape—of queer teens who meet at a Christian conversion camp. It's enraging, heartbreaking, satisfying and an important read for our times."
—Ms.

DELIA BARNES AND ERNEST WRANGHAM met as teens at Celebration Camp, a church-supported conversion therapy program—the dubious, unscientific, Christian practice meant to change a person’s sexuality. After witnessing a devastating tragedy, they escaped in the night, only to take separate roads to their distant homes. 

They have no idea how each has fared through the years. Delia is a college basketball coach who prides herself on being an empowering and self-possessed role model for her players. But when she gets fired from her elite East Coast college, she’s forced to return to her hometown of Rockside, Oregon, to coach at her high school alma mater. 

Ernest, meanwhile, is a renowned poet with a temporary teaching job in Portland, Oregon. His work has always been boundary-pushing, fearless. But the poem he’s most wanted to write—about his dangerous escape from Celebration Camp—remains stubbornly out of reach. 

Both persist in the mission to overcome the consequences and inhumane costs of conversion therapy. As events find them hurtling toward each other once again, they both grapple with the necessity of remaining steadfast in one’s truth, no matter how slippery that can be. Tell the Rest is a powerful novel about coming to terms, with family, history, violence, loss, sexuality, and ultimately, with love. 

Sujets

• Literary
• LGBTQ+
• Literature
• Friendship
• Lesbian
• Gay
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Akashic Books
• Date de parution: 07 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781636140827
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

More Critical Praise for Lucy Jane Bledsoe
FOR A T HIN B RIGHT L INE
“It triumphs as an intimate and humane evocation of day-to-day life under inhumane circumstances.”
— New York Times Book Review
“Empowering and bold.” — Publishers Weekly
“A stirring and deeply felt story.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Is it possible for a novel to both break your heart and to heal it? … Bledsoe is deft in the way she shows … various models of how to be a lesbian in the world of the ’50s and early ’60s.”
— Lambda Literary Review
“Gripping historical fiction about queer life at the height of the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement.”
—Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home
“Lucy Jane Bledsoe’s A Thin Bright Line is a testament to courage and perseverance in the face of oppression. It’s also a compelling, literary page-turner worthy of standing alongside the works of Pat Barker and Graham Greene. It reminds us that we are nothing, deep down, without love and dignity.”
—Patrick Ryan, author of The Dream Life of Astronauts
FOR T HE E VOLUTION OF L OVE
“In the context of a twisting plot, in the company of appealing characters, Bledsoe asks us to think about the resilience of love and hate; what our responsibility to each other is; and who we really are, right down to our DNA. Highly recommended.”
—Karen Joy Fowler, author of Booth
“Lucy Jane Bledsoe’s writing leaps off the page with striking clarity. Her characters take you by the hand and lead you through their freshly broken lives, and with them you’ll discover shelters of friendship and loyalty.”
—Shanthi Sekaran, author of Lucky Boy
FOR L AVA F ALLS: STORIES
“In these twelve remarkable stories, the reader journeys from the remotest inner reaches of Alaska to deceptively calm suburban neighborhoods to a research station at the bottom of the world. Yet Lucy Jane Bledsoe’s true territory is the wild, uncharted expanse of the heart … A wise and wonderful collection.”
—Kirstin Valdez Quade, author of The Five Wounds
“This novella and group of stories by Lucy Jane Bledsoe will move and surprise and thrill you. Bledsoe brings us right into her characters’ lives, taking us on unexpected journeys, and through it all, the empowered and vulnerable women in Bledsoe’s lively fictional world continually find themselves, so as readers we learn more about survival and are reminded of hope, and find ourselves being delightfully renewed.”
—Allen Gee, author of My Chinese-America
FOR N O S TOPPING U S N OW
“This autobiographical novel, with richly developed bold, courageous characters, and raw emotion, deftly captures the period of transition, not just for Louisa but for women’s rights in the 1970s.”
— School Library Journal
TELL THE REST
LUCY JANE BLEDSOE
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by Akashic Books
©2023 Lucy Jane Bledsoe
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-1-63614-079-7
E-BOOK ISBN: 978-1-63614-082-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022933223
First printing
Akashic Books
Brooklyn, New York
Instagram, Twitter, Facebook: AkashicBooks
[e-mail]
www.akashicbooks.com
Where whoever had hanged the arm from its pole had made certain that it was as much a gesture of grim and humorous defiance as the old house; where whoever had taken the trouble to swing the arm out into sight of the road had also taken the trouble to tie down all the fingers but the middle finger, leaving that rigid and universal sentiment lifted with unmistakable scorn to all that came past.
—Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion
CHAPTER 1
The rain stopped falling just as the first light of dawn paled the bits of sky showing through the dripping forest canopy. Delia and Ernest ran awkwardly, hurdling over fallen logs, kicking through fern tangles. She refused to let go of his hand, even though that would make running easier, even though twice he’d tried to shake free of her. Both were panting. When they came to the road, they dropped to their knees and Ernest put his face to the weeds growing along the shoulder. Delia put hers on his back, absorbed the up-and-down movement of his heaving lungs, the damp of his sweaty shirt. When he raised his head, she slid off him and sat back on her heels. He looked at her, frowning slightly, sweat and rain wetting his face. She smiled, wanting to affirm their partnership. You and me, she thought. She barely knew him, but she loved him. He wasn’t her boyfriend. He wasn’t her brother. He was so much more than her friend.
“Let’s go,” he said, pulling her to her feet. A whisper of a mustache, soft and black, sweetened his upper lip.
“Shouldn’t we stay out of sight of the road?”
He looked up the deserted highway where it narrowed to disappearance and then down in the other direction where it curved out of sight. Just kids, a sixteen-year-old Black boy and a thirteen-year-old white girl, escapees, they weren’t just conspicuous, they were targets. Someone would be tracking them soon.
“It can’t be far to a town,” he said. “And it’ll be much faster if we hoof along the road.”
A few minutes later they came to a junction. Boggy wetlands surrounded the dilapidated mini-mart and gas station, as if the entire place were about to be swallowed.
“Call your brother,” Ernest said.
“I don’t have any money.”
“Call him collect.”
Ernest stood by her side, glancing in every direction, while she made the call using the public phone sheltered by a blue plastic hood on the outside of the mini-mart. As she punched in her home phone number, she rested her eyes on Ernest. He was already six feet tall, softly muscled and hard-blinking, as if he were forever trying to bring things into focus. His ears were large and flared, giving the impression of a boy listening intently. To everything. As the phone rang and rang, she thought Ernest was watching out for dangers as he stood in front of her, surveying the gray sky, the mesh of Douglas fir across the road, the occasional traffic rumbling along the highway. In fact, she soon learned, he was looking for opportunity.
Dylan sleepily answered on the eleventh ring. He accepted the charges.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes. But maybe you could come get us.”
“I’ll get the address,” Ernest whispered, gesturing at the interior of the mini-mart, then he went inside.
“Who’s us ?” Dylan asked.
“Me and Ernest.”
“Who’s Ernest?”
“Can you just come?”
“Should I call Pastor Quade?”
Delia almost said yes. Her brother’s voice brought back the before . She saw Pastor Quade’s slate eyes, the way they sheened in righteous joy. She heard his hot and decisive way of speaking. He wasn’t only their pastor, he was their family friend. He would correct this mistake. But then she remembered.
“No. Don’t.”
“Okay.” Dylan didn’t ask for more explanation. “I’ll come now.”
Ernest returned to her side and told her their location, which she repeated for Dylan. Then she asked, “Where’s Mom?”
“At work.”
“Doesn’t she have the car?”
“She keeps a spare key in her underwear drawer.” He laughed. “I guess she thinks I’d never look there.” It wasn’t the first time Dylan had taken the car, though he was fifteen and didn’t have a license.
“You’ll walk to the store?” It was at least a mile to their mother’s place of work.
“I’ll run.”
After Delia hung up, she and Ernest moved away from the front of the building and hid behind a porta-potty on the edge of the parking area. Was there a map in her mom’s car? Even if there was, would Dylan be able to find the junction?
As they waited, a seafood truck pulled into the gas pumping lane. A lithe and homely white man jumped down from the driver’s seat, pumped gas, and went inside to pay. When he came back out with a bag of Doritos and a can of Mountain Dew, Ernest rubbed his hands on the tops of his thighs, as if warming them. He didn’t look at Delia, or say a word to her, he just glided over to the man who was climbing back into his truck. Delia hustled along behind.
“I need a ride to Portland,” Ernest said. He blinked rapidly as if delivering a message in Morse code. He pointed at the big green sign across the road, white lettering announcing Portland in one direction and Tillamook in the other, his hands sensual and promising. He licked his lips and looked into the driver’s eyes.
Delia was stunned. She thought Ernest was coming back to Rockside with her.
“Dylan can take you to Portland!” she shouted, even though she stood just a few feet away, even though she didn’t know if that was true.
The ferret-faced man pulled the tab off his can of Mountain Dew and took a long drink. He looked at Ernest, glanced at Delia, and then back at Ernest. “Who’s she?”
Ernest read the exchange as a yes. He walked around to the passenger side, pulled open the door, and leapt up into the seafood truck. Before shutting the door behind him, he blew Delia a kiss.
She watched the truck lumber onto the highway, turning in the direction away from Portland. That was the last she saw of him.
CHAPTER 2
As Delia came into the office, the secretary’s eyes grazed her bare legs. She should have worn slacks and a nice blouse. But the day would only get hotter, and she wanted to get in her workout before it became stifling. Anyway, it was summertime. It was just Ashley. So she wore her long-distance sneakers, running shorts, and a hot-pink tank top.
Delia headed straight for the dean’s door, but the secretary swiveled in her chair and said, “Oh! Have a seat. Dean Pruitt will be right with you.”
Why so formal? Delia and the dean sometimes ran together, and often worked out side by side at the gym. Ashley and her husband had both spoken at Morgan’s and her wedding.
“No problem,” Delia said and forced herself to smile. She perched on one of the built-in benches that circled the room. The same darkly polished wood trimmed the two windows. A portrait of the college founde