The Killing Tree
by Rachel Keener
List Price: $13.99
Pages: 336
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781599951119
Publisher: Center Street
Rachel Keener was born in the mountains of southwest Virginia in 1978. After graduating from Carson Newman College, she attended law school at Wake Forest University. She graduated in the top of her class at the age of twenty-three. Today, Rachel lives in the Winston-Salem area of North Carolina with her husband and two sons. This is her first novel.
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A:
Q: What inspired you to write this book?
A: I felt trapped. Stuck reading case after case inside my law school books. Every night writing briefs to prepare for the moment a professor would call my name to recite holdings and defend positions before the class. I needed an escape. At first, there was no time for new novels, no time to read about new characters or adventures. So I created my own. While my husband took notes for the both of us, I started writing. I escaped to Crooktop mountain.
Q: Give us an idea of the plot/subject without giving too much away.
A: The Killing Tree is about the life and love that was stolen from Mercy on the day she was born, and her battle to reclaim it. To do this, Mercy will have to overcome the pain of her family history, one soiled by murder and small town rumor. She will have to fight against her grandfather, and her own crippling fears which work to trap her on Crooktop. With the love of a migrant worker, who like her is outside of all that is considered “good” on Crooktop, Mercy will find the courage to wage this battle.
Q: What is the primary message you’d like your readers to take away from this book? (If a novel, is there an underlying theme?)
A: Self-realization, and the courage and fight that are needed to achieve it, are the underlying themes of The Killing Tree.
Q: What is your favorite scene in the book? Why?
My favorite scene is the birth of Glory. I love the sudden rush of purpose and hope that overwhelms Mercy. I love the connection to Trout that she senses in Glory. I love the name Mercy chooses for her baby.
Q: What was the most difficult scene to write? Why?
A: I cried as I wrote the scene where Father Heron burns Mercy’s babydoll. I hadn’t been planning that scene, but it arrived on the page. There were already so many things to grieve about. Trout’s disappearance, which had just occurred in the earlier chapter. Mercy’s reaction and sense of “death” over it. And then this scene happened. I think it reveals, perhaps more than any other, the cruelty that Mercy has had to survive her whole life. There is such innocence in her voice here, as she recalls loving that Sally doll and having to watch her doll die. It broke my heart.
Q: Which character do you identify with the most in your book? How much of yourself did you put into these characters and did you realize you showed up in the book? If so, while you were writing or only afterwards upon review?
A: Mercy. As I was writing I knew that some of Mercy’s impressions, about the mountains or the fields of tomatoes, were my own. But it wasn’t until review that I realized other little things about Mercy’s personality --- her discomfort among crowds, her reaction to her first day of high school --- were similar to my own.
Q: What are you reading right now?
A: The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers.
Q: Who are your favorite authors and who influenced your writing?
A: There are many authors whose work I treasure. But Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is the book that showed me just how beautiful language can be --- how deeply it can make me feel, how easily it can break my heart. I read it during the same season that I first fell in love and found myself reading passages over and over, just to savor their perfection. The plot was wonderful, but it’s Hurston’s words that I’ll never forget.
Growing up, I was blessed with teachers who influenced my writing. My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Tester, assigned me extra poetry projects and often invited me to read my poetry and stories to the class. My high school English teacher, Mrs. Benson, encouraged me as well. She wrote a college reference letter for me that stated she would be surprised if I didn’t pursue a writing career. When I first began to dream about publishing The Killing Tree, I kept her letter by my laptop.
The greatest encouragement of my writing however, has come from my husband Kip. Mercy’s song to Glory (page 308) was the first thing that I ever wrote for The Killing Tree, and at the time it was nothing more than a random poem. But Kip read it and urged me to explore the new voice I had captured. He took notes for the both of us during class so I could write. He kicked me under the table if I was typing too much, lost on Crooktop, and in danger of attracting the professor’s attention. And he’s the one that read the finished product and decided to send it off to New York. I said No but he wouldn’t listen. I’m so glad he didn’t.
Q: Can you offer a glimpse into your “real life” and share with us a bit of your personal life --- Outside of writing, what’s important to you (i.e., hobbies, passions, causes, family)?
A: I love to cook for my family and friends. I am always hunting for new recipes that I think they will enjoy. Family dinnertime is a high priority in our home.
It’s also important to me that my boys learn to appreciate the outdoors. It’s easy to fill up their days with scheduled activities and sports. I try to ensure that they have plenty of time to just walk through the woods and search for little boy treasure, like interesting rocks, turtle shells, and ant “cities.”
And I’m learning to garden. Each summer I plant tomatoes, but my ambitions are growing. This summer: beans.
Q: Tell us something surprising about you and/or something very few people know about you.
A: If I’m sitting down to write, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata is playing. This is something that developed after I became a mother. For some reason, this song opens up a new room of thought in my mind, a place without grocery lists or laundry baskets. I’m not actually conscious of the music while writing, but I am distracted if it’s not on. To me, the song is full of notes of yearning and hope, the same things I like to write about. Kip jokes that I’m trying to write the lyrics to Moonlight Sonata.
Q: What has been one of your biggest struggles and/or successes (professional/personal) and what have you learned from it?
A: Less than a year into practicing law, I had a six week old baby boy and was assigned to a trial team that worked grueling hours and travelled extensively. I hated the thought of leaving my baby for such long amounts of time. It was a struggle to walk away from a career that took so much effort, time and money to arrive at, just as it was finally beginning.
Few people knew about my writing, much of my identity was wrapped up in being an attorney. It was a shock to trade life in the fast lane, complete with a downtown office and spacious cherry desk, for days spent walking a colicky newborn. But as I adjusted to my new life, I learned two things. The first is that I am not the sum of my titles or degrees. There is so much more to me, that can’t be framed on an office wall. I am a mother, a wife, a hopeful writer. The second thing I learned is that while it may not be as glamorous as the legal fast lane, there is real opportunity in the slow lane. Poetry hides there. New voices and characters lurk. So does time. To teach my boys to love a forest. To learn how to grow a hill of beans.
Q: Have you ever had a nickname? Tell us about it.
A: Kip calls me Billy, his shortened form of Silly Billy, and it’s stuck. He’s the only one that can get away with it though.
Q: Who is your biggest fan?
A: My husband Kip. My Dad’s great love is books, so he’s really proud too.
Q: What was the best advice you’ve ever received—do you follow it?
A: I am a planner. I like to have at least a general idea of how things are going to go and what to expect. But so much of life is messy, unplanned, and out of control. Someone once encouraged me, during such times, to remember Jeremiah 29:11--“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
When my daily plans are disrupted, or when my hopes are disappointed, I find comfort knowing that I have a Father who still has a wonderful plan for my life and the lives of my children.
Q: What is your favorite literary turn-of-phrase / quote / word picture?
A: “Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.” Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. Also: “He looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom–a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung about him. He was a glance from God.” Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston.
Q: What did you learn about yourself while writing this book that you may not have expected?
A: That apparently, I didn’t want the big corporate law career as much as I thought. I had spent so much energy staying focused on the academic course set before me. But there I was in class, sneaking away to Crooktop even as I marched toward my degree.
Q: What’s next for you --- Anything else you’d like to offer?
A: I’m working on my second novel, The Memory Thief. Its release is scheduled through Center Street, for March 2010.
© Copyright 2009 by Rachel Keener. Reprinted with permission by Center Street. All rights reserved.
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