by Jeff High
Luke shook his head. It was an incredible gesture, a gift that was completely unnecessary and over-the-top. Even still, he suspected that Louise would not hear of accepting it back.
He held the small bag high above him and studied the diamond against the backdrop of distant stars. And as he did, a powerful thought came to him, capturing him with a euphoric, exhilarating idea.
He returned everything to the envelope and placed it back in his pocket. Again, he inhaled deeply, drawing in the warm, fresh, intoxicating aromas of the night, the splendid air of Eden. His thoughts were sublimely occupied, filled with tender musings. Unhurriedly, he began to make his way through the dewy grass toward the distant porch light.
All the while, his mind was consumed with a single word . . . Christine, Christine, Christine.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For me, writing is a family affair, meaning . . . I couldn’t pull it off without their support. Heartfelt thanks go to my wife, Dawn, who brings a wonderful balance to some of my zany ideas for plot and story, and who graciously endures my frustration when she doesn’t absolutely love my first drafts. As well, huge thanks go to my son, Austin, who brilliantly created, ex nihilo, the watervalleybooks.com Web site and who continues to be the brains and organizer of the business side of writing books.
Also, sincere thanks for all their support go out to dear friends from the old Columbia, Belmont, and Vandy gangs, including Marsha, Jeri Ann, Cindy, Phyllis, Vicki, Kim, Terri, Teresa, Pam, Jane, Amy, and Melissa. You guys are more wonderful than you know.
A special thank-you to Joe Evans for his continued enthusiasm and mentoring is also in order. And to Jim Ross for his ever-steady encouragement.
As always, thanks to my agent, Susan Gleason, for guiding me through another project.
And finally, a huge thanks to my most excellent editor, Ellen Edwards, who once again has patiently and meticulously helped me craft a wonderful story. You’re the best!
Photo by Amanda Hagler
After growing up on a farm in rural Tennessee, Jeff High attained degrees in literature and nursing. He is the three-time winner, in fiction and poetry, of an annual writing contest held by Vanderbilt Medical Center. He lived in Nashville for many years, and throughout the country as a travel nurse, before returning to his original hometown, near where he now works as an operating room RN in open-heart surgery.
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A CONVERSATION WITH JEFF HIGH
Q. Each Shining Hour is your second novel. How did your experience of writing it compare to writing your first book, More Things in Heaven and Earth?
A. More Things in Heaven and Earth was written over a period of several years, and I experimented with several different writing styles before settling on the first-person mode. So with Each Shining Hour, I had a working framework from which to build the story. I think this allowed me to place a greater focus on the twists and turns of the plot.
Q. At the heart of Each Shining Hour lies a double homicide—the only murder in the history of your fictional community, Watervalley, Tennessee. What inspired you to center your story around a murder?
A. Murder is still the ultimate misdeed. I grew up in the sixties on a large farm in a sleepy rural community. Few murders occurred. But when they did, they consumed us because they were so foreign to the life we knew. Serious crime spoke of discord and brought doubt into how we saw our lives. By small degrees, it forced us to redefine our understanding of our small world. Thus, a murder in a small community resonated with me from all those years ago as a defining moment that changed everything.
Q. I love your strong, forthright female characters—Estelle Pillow, Lida Wilkins, Ann Patterson, and, of course, Connie Thompson. You’ve told me that you believe such women form the backbone of small Southern communities. Can you explain what you mean?
A. I can’t speak for other parts of the country, but women in the South have many diverse expectations placed upon them. They are expected to be devoted wives and mothers; be committed to either church or community work, or both; hold down jobs outside the home; and, whenever possible, look like a million bucks. Just go to an SEC football game and see how the women are dressed. I have known many women who have led selfless, hardworking lives with an unimaginable devotion to their families and communities. They are the glue of Southern life.
Q. Much of this novel seems to be about how events in the past continue to exert an influence on the present. In your experience, is that especially true of small towns, where people tend to stay put from one generation to another?
A. Absolutely. Significant events, especially tragic ones, become part of the shared history of people in a small community. As the years pass, references to those events become part of the common vernacular, an unspoken understanding that transcends economic status, or race, or education. And these events—whether a murder, a flood, the death of a local soldier in combat, or even the loss of a major high school football game—have a ripple effect on people for years to come.
Q. Luke Bradford notices that Christine Chambers, who has recently returned to Watervalley from Atlanta, has an “urban polish.” He, and everyone else in town, can tell right away that she’s lived in a city. How the heck do they know?
A. It may come as a surprise to some, but the urban South is high on style. How your hair is cut, how you speak, what you wear—they matter. We are social creatures, and these subtle influences permeate our choices if we are part of a larger city for any length of time. It is not an issue of vanity or shallowness; it is the reality of our nature. Typically, small towns, especially remote ones, simply don’t have the same multitude of choices and influences. Dress and language tend to be more homogenized and generic. So, when you meet someone from an urban environment . . . you can tell.
Q. One of my favorite things about Luke is that he’s such a dreamer. He daydreams in his backyard, looking at the stars. He daydreams while jogging along Summerfield Road, thinking about Christine Chambers. He daydreams in his office between seeing patients. Is daydreaming still alive and well in the South, or is it in danger of disappearing, like so many “old-fashioned” activities that require time and leisure? (I could go on and on about how nobody whistles anymore!)
A. I think it is alive and well in the South. . . but typically starts with the statement “After I win the lottery, I’m going to . . .” That being said, without a doubt the pace of rural small-town life is slower and lends itself to reflection. In the twilight hours we work in our gardens, we talk to our next-door neighbors, we hear the sounds of the Little League game being played in the park across the way, and we dream about going to the beach. As well, Luke is an idealist . . . always dreaming about what life could be. In Each Shining Hour, this begins to change. He begins to evolve his understanding about perceived perfection and living in the moment.
Q. In this book you introduce travel nurse Ann Patterson. You once worked as a travel nurse. Being from the North, I’m not familiar with the concept. Can you explain it? Do certain regions of the country rely more heavily on travel nurses than others?
A. Actually, travel nursing is common all across the country. Typically, the jobs occur in thirteen-week assignments and are for an RN specialty. For a while, I traveled as a cardiac operating room nurse. Remote assignments like the one Ann Patterson takes in Watervalley are less prevalent. However, travel nursing is a great way to experience different parts of the country and become immersed in the local culture for a short period. I loved it. And I can’t help but mention that once, on an assignment in Oregon, several people mentioned that they loved the way I talked. I told them I was from the South. This was invariably met with “No joke.” How did they know?
Q. Another aspect of this book I noticed, and enjoyed, is that even dead people are not really dead to those who loved them. Connie’s mother,
Maylene; John’s wife, Molly; Christine’s father, Albert were all strong influences in their lives, and continue to inspire their choices and attitudes. This strikes me as so true to life. Care to comment?
A. This is unquestionably true. People in our past who loved us, and whom we truly loved, continue to speak to us, guiding our choices and our expectations of ourselves. The richness of our experiences with them lends richness, meaning, and order to our daily lives. This is also true of those we have lost and didn’t get an opportunity to love enough. We are haunted in both positive and sometimes sorrowful ways by those who are no longer with us.
Q. The theme of redemption also runs through the novel. Was that intentional?
A. Very much so. I guess this is a rich part of my world and life view. Some might consider it naive, but I tend to think that in the fullness of time, things tend to work out in ways that are positive and redemptive. They don’t always happen on our time schedule, or even in our lifetimes. But regardless of one’s personal beliefs, the human condition seems to be such that we eventually find resolution for injustice. All too often we simply don’t have the patience or the imagination to look for it and see it.
Q. I love the Watervalley characters, but you also provide vivid descriptions of the landscape and town: the winter-barren farm fields; a late-night bonfire at Moon Lake; the creepy overgrown cemetery where Luke and Christine find Oscar Fox’s grave marker; and the town square jumping with people and lively with music during the Runs with Scissors race. Such scenes have stayed with me long after I finished the book. Are such places as real for you as they are for us readers?
A. Yes, and it may be either a blessing or a curse of my writing style, but I have a tremendous sense of place when I write. It is critically important to me that the reader be transported by the texture, the smells, the color, the light, the excitement, and even the awkwardness of what the characters are experiencing. But these sensations have to be conveyed with an economy of words or the story begins to drag. Admittedly, sometimes I get carried away with these narrative descriptions. Maybe at heart I’m just a frustrated (or not very good) poet looking for that perfect collection of words to capture a scene.
Q. Your novels poke gentle fun at human foibles, including Luke’s. I particularly love when Mattie Chambers threatens Luke, and when Lester Caruthers is described as needing “special pills” for LOA (lack of ambition). Do such ideas come from a lifetime’s observations? Do you carry a notebook around and take notes about what you see and hear?
A. Not exactly . . . but there is some truth to your suggestion. I hear funny things every day, and it has become a habit to write them down. I have pages and pages of notes, and often in the course of writing, I will refer back to them to see if something fits a certain character or scene. I never use most of them, but somehow writing them down helps me; the act empowers me to translate a certain mood or conversation onto the page.
Q. Life in Watervalley feels timeless. I can imagine much of the action taking place in any decade of the later twentieth century. Is that a deliberate choice, or has it come naturally?
A. It is very much intentional, even though the stories are set in modern day. Admittedly there is a certain “halo effect” to the people and the life of Watervalley. As I have mentioned before, I tend to be a “glass half full” kind of guy. Thus, I enjoy the challenge of writing stories that ultimately are funny, thought provoking, and life affirming. There’s plenty of depravity and loss, even in a small town and even in my own life, that I could write about. And someday, maybe I will write one of those stories. But for now I only want to write novels that seek to illuminate those things that are good and bright and positive about small-town Southern life.
Q. The book’s title comes from the Isaac Watts poem “How Doth the Little Busy Bee,” a poem that might seem quaint to some readers. Can you explain your choice?
A. The poem is about living in the moment and making the most of each day. In the novel, this simple but challenging idea plays heavily in Luke Bradford’s life. As noted above, he is a daydreamer . . . always thinking about what could or might be. But as his experiences unfold, he grows to understand the importance, the necessity, and the beauty of embracing each day . . . to make the most of each shining hour. By way of confession, the only thing wrong with the title is that I did not come up with it. My crafty editor, Ellen Edwards, suggested it after reading the story concept. It only took a second for me to realize it was a perfect fit. Darn it.
Curiously, Isaac Watts is best known as a hymn writer and wrote the popular Christmas carol “Joy to the World.”
Q. What’s next for Watervalley?
A. The next novel, They Also Serve (a tentative title, my editor reminds me), continues the romance of Luke and Christine Chambers but with some unexpected turns. When Christine comes across the journal she kept as a teenager, she can’t help comparing Luke to the idealized future love she dreamed about in those early years. As well, Luke becomes embroiled in issues surrounding the small Mennonite community nearby and the town’s military veterans, through which he sees some new sides of Watervalley. He also finds himself caught up in the trials and troubles of a new veterinarian as she struggles to win acceptance from the local farmers. John, Connie, and Estelle are still in the thick of everything happening in Luke’s life . . . whether he wants them there or not.
Ultimately, Luke finds himself at the center of decades-old conflicts and resentments that threaten to permanently scar the Watervalley life he has come to love. At the same time, his relationship with Christine comes to an unexpected crisis point. Collectively, these adversities force Luke to make some tough decisions . . . about love, ambition, and the role he should play in the lives of those around him. He must define the terms by which he will live the rest of his life.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What did you enjoy most about Each Shining Hour? What do you think you’ll remember best about it?
2. Talk about what in the book made you laugh. Did anything make you cry?
3. Who is your favorite character, and why?
4. Several characters find redemption in this book or are on the way to finding it. Who are they, and how do they discover it?
5. How does life in Watervalley differ from where you live? How is it similar?
6. Discuss Luke’s courtship of Christine Chambers. What do you like about it? In what ways is theirs a modern relationship and in what ways is it old-fashioned?
7. Discuss Connie Thompson’s relationship with Luke; her sister, Estelle; John Harris; and Randall Simmons. What do we learn about her in this book that fills in some of her background? Is her trepidation at the bank inconsistent with the strength she shows at other times?
8. Luke is bequeathed a vintage Austin-Healey. Have you ever received something valuable through an inheritance or bequest? What was it? What effect did it have on your life?
9. Oscar Fox’s reputation was unfairly maligned for decades because of ignorance and misunderstanding. Discuss how that affected his descendants and other people in town, and how their lives might change once the truth is revealed. Discuss those who worked to bring the truth to light and what forces opposed their efforts.
10. What appeals to you about life in Watervalley? Can those qualities be replicated in your own community? Why or why not?
11. What do you think will happen in the next book? What do you want to happen?
AVAILABLE IN OCTOBER 2015
If you enjoy spending time in Watervalley,
you’ll want to return for another visit.
DON’T MISS BOOK THREE OF JEFF HIGH’S SERIES SET IN SMALL-TOWN
WATERVALLEY, TENNESSEE. . . .
As Luke Bradford’s courtship of Christine Chambers continues along a bumpy path, he also gains insights into how the service of loyal townspeople holds the town together . . . and what happens when their sacrifices are forg
otten.
Available from New American Library
wherever books and e-books are sold.
