I'm celebrating turning 60, rolling out fresh editions of six backlist books. Watch this space and follow me on Instagram for opportunities to score autographed copies. Out of the vault this week: Crazy for Trying 25th Anniversary Author's Cut, my debut novel originally published by MacMurray & Beck in 1996.
I developed a five-year plan that included two realistically achievable goals: First: Vigilant in word and deed, I would leave a handprint of lovingkindness on my five-year-old daughter, Jerusha, and my seven-year-old son, Malachi, hoping that would give substance to their incomplete memories of me. Second: I would write one good book and get it published.
As a talented dabbler, I’d been working on a wad of purple prose and zingy dialogue that vaguely resembled a book. Most first novels are autobiographical in some way, and I did borrow details from my life for Tulsa, my zaftig protagonist. There were stories I wanted to tell my daughter, and some of them are injected here, but I purposely made this book recognizably not a roman à clef. I hoped that, in my absence, my daughter would eventually understand that all these characters are, in some aspect, me: Tulsa, whose seeking instinct overcomes her self-loathing. Mac, who finds his best life when he’s at his most broken. Anne Marie, the overwhelmed mommy. Alexandra, a compulsive creator of words, and Jeanne (pronounced in my mind like jay-ann, not gene), a purveyor of shalom. The radio listeners, the passersby, the mountains, the music, the dead—I wanted my daughter to know that I was all and none of these so that she would feel empowered to be all and none of whomever she pleased. I wanted her to see me in the pages of this book and see herself between the lines.
As my real life became unbearable, I retreated into Mac and Tulsa’s world. Their story was a life raft I climbed onto; had I not found it, I would have drowned. I wrote and rewrote, loving the work and the self I became while doing it. As a lifelong voracious consumer of books, good and bad, I had a strong sense that this book was good. I refined a query packet that included a cover letter, synopsis, and the first thirty pages of the manuscript, sent out my first seventyish queries to agents and editors, and collected my first seventyish rejections. Most were form rejections, probably triggered by the bulk of the overwritten manuscript. As books tend to do when written in a vacuum, it had bloated like a beached orca.
The personal query responses I did get contained high praise for the writing, heartening close-but-no-cigar agent-speak, and invitations to send my next book. Only one story-specific note came up again and again; agents consistently pointed to the Alexandra/Jeanne relationship as “off-putting” or a “deal-killer.” Everyone knows God didn’t create bisexuality until the mid-aughts, so for most mainstream agents in 1994, a nonbinary love story was the kiss of death unless it involved gay men or arcane reference to the price of salt. Tulsa’s mother, Alexandra, struggled in that version of the manuscript—as many of us did in real life—scorched equally by gay and straight sanctimony.
One agent advised: “If the book is about that, it has to be about that. Otherwise, it’s just a hill you died on for no reason.” I didn’t want this book to be “about that,” but I did want my future girl to see bisexuality normalized in the context of a loving, long-term relationship that deserved to be a legal marriage blessed with the emotional bounty, healthcare parity, and tax advantages of any other marriage. I couldn’t accept the premise that bisexuality is so grotesque, the mere mention of it as an aspect of a secondary character makes the whole book “about that,” and the Alexandra in me suspected that if this book was being written by a man—queer or straight—he would not be dying on this hill or any other.
I sent out a last round of queries, making only one change: The title page and cover letter said J. L. Rodgers instead of Joni Rodgers. Within a month, out of twelve queries, I had eleven requests for the full manuscript, which led to offers from two publishers. Every one of the positive responses began: Dear Mr. Rodgers . . .
I can laugh now—the luxuriously guilty laughter of the bullet-dodger. I survived, against all odds, in large part because Crazy for Trying gave me something to be. This book quite literally saved my life; now I’m returning the favor.
I’m thrilled to present this 25th Anniversary Author’s Cut to the next generation of readers, including the fabulous woman my daughter has grown up to be. (She is now the same age I was when I wrote this book. Insert “mind blown” emoji.) The story is unchanged for the most part, but all the greenhorn machinations, flabby adverbs, and exclamation points are safely biodegrading in the landfills of literary history. This made room to restore some of the original banter that defined Mac and Tulsa’s relationship, which was always more Socratic dialogue than romance.
I’m a grandmother now, in the twenty-sixth year of my five-year plan, still striving to leave a handprint of lovingkindness. Whatever book I’m working on today is that one good book into which I pour my good intentions, but Crazy for Tryingwill always have a special home in my soul. It was my sanctuary and school of hard knocks.
When Crazy for Trying was first published in 1996, Lisa Gray’s review in the Houston Press summed it up perfectly: “Think Jane Eyre with rock and roll.” Enough has changed—and not changed—about love, addiction, motherhood, and sexism that Tulsa’s story, like Jane’s, remains relevant and, I hope, entertaining. Thank you for being part of her journey and mine.
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