How I Infused Fragments of Myself in My First Novel
By Jeffrey Dale Lofton
The best kind of writing goes for the jugular. It challenges the mind and tears at the heart with fierce precision, defying our sense of what is right and fair. That was the task before me in writing my debut novel Red Clay Suzie.
My first lines were guided by the never-let-facts-get-in-the-way-of-a-good-narrative adage, but the more I worked the messier it got—it was an outpouring of long pent-up anguish over the realities of growing up gay and physically misshapen in a deeply conservative family in rural Georgia. Early drafts were, in essence, journal entries about figuring out life and love—love of others and of myself.
Loving myself wasn’t easy. I was a slight, effeminate boy born with a skeletal deformity. One side of my chest is relatively flat and the other is caved-in, a condition as a little kid I believed I’d caused by wedging myself between the bottom of my mattress and the footboard of my bed—a loving embrace of sorts—when I felt alone, afraid, or ashamed.
My writing was ultimately overtaken by life events, and I put away my notebooks for a couple of decades. I didn’t need to record my innermost thoughts and longings any longer, because my first career as an actor presented me with countless opportunities to draw from and ponder the indelible imprint of growing up as an outsider. When I gave up acting in search of “a real job with steady income,” (echoes of my parents’ entreaties), I ended up at the Library of Congress, surrounded by books and people who love them. I picked up my higgledy-piggledy prose written in unlined notebooks and on scraps of paper and read my words as if for the first time, taking stock of them with the hard-won objectivity of someone who had, more or less, grown up.
At first, all of the memories of being bullied and teased and body-shamed came flooding back. Tears flowed, but not tears of self-pity. I wept for the children who feel like aliens and are looking for something better, more inclusive, and affirming. I resolved to write a fictionalized account of my life. Early mornings, with our seven-and-a-half pound toy poodle on my lap, I tapped away on my keyboard. Late at night, before joining my beloved partner already in slumber, I wrote and rewrote. I found my most productive time was during my commute to and from the Library. That’s where much of Red Clay Suzie was born, earplugs deadening ambient noise and fingers flying.
The toughest part of designing and building my book was never veering from my premise, which became a mental discipline as I decided which real-life experiences distracted from my narrative arc. Not every realization or confrontation (however defining they may have been) served the story I was intent on telling. It can be wrenching to relegate an unforgettable memory to the rubbish bin if it gets in the way.
Part of what makes this wheat-and-chaff exercise so critical to good storytelling is that you don’t want to straightjacket yourself. You don’t want to slam the door on those happy writing accidents, those influences from the subconscious that bring an idea or a character to vivid life. In fact, that serendipity is part of the process of finding your voice as a writer—that distinctive play of language that identifies you even without a byline. But it’s still vital to stick to the premise. As the saying, or more precisely the warning, goes: If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.
Another aspect of good fiction is giving the reader a sense of time and place. My protagonist, Philbet (read: me), is not just a child of a cautious and conservative upbringing in the Deep South. He is also a product of the late 1960s and ‘70s, when The Partridge Family was must-watch television, Paul Lynde’s Hollywood Squares quips were reliable watercooler banter, and American Pie was at the top of the charts. Weaving those defining touchpoints into the story proved to be one of the most enjoyable parts of writing my novel. I found that having the chart-topping songs from my childhood playing in the background (much to the dismay of my classical-music-loving partner) triggered memories that shaped my storytelling.
The question of how well I captured the imagination of my readers is best left for them to decide. But here are the truths I hope shine through Red Clay Suzie’s pages: bullies are paper predators who have no more power than you give them. They are as terrorized by life as you, and once you understand that they lose their power. Whatever imperfections (real and perceived) your body has, it is beautiful and precious. Treat it with kindness and care so it carries you as far as it is able. Do not give in to your inclination to hide, to withdraw from the world. There will always be someone you can trust somewhere in those concentric circles of humanity that surround and follow you through life.
Above all else, the quality of your mind and heart matters most. That, more than anything else, defines you. Oh, and yes, love—real love—is never wrong. Bravely bestow it on whomever is worthy of the gift. That is what I wish my younger self had known. That is Philbet’s story.
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Jeffrey Dale Lofton is a senior advisor at the Library of Congress. Red Clay Suzie is his first work of fiction, written through his personal lens growing up an outsider figuring out life and love in a conservative family and community in the Deep South.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the Red Clay Suzie will go to support the important work of two organizations dedicated to helping at-risk youth: the Born This Way Foundation, founded by Lady Gaga and her mother Cynthia Germanotta, and The Trevor Project, the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ young people.