Debut author, Elizabeth A. Tucker, joins the Spotlight to chat about her literary novel, The Pale Flesh of Wood
Author Name: Elizabeth A. Tucker
Book Title: The Pale Flesh of Wood
Book Genre: Literary Fiction/Historical Fiction
Release Date: February 11, 2025
Publisher: She Writes Press
Welcome, Elizabeth! Please tell us a bit about The Pale Flesh of Wood.
Set among the fault-prone landscape of Northern California, The Pale Flesh of Wood explores the rippling effects of trauma following the suicide of charismatic yet emotionally troubled WWII veteran Charles Hawkins. Told by three generations of the Hawkins family, each narrative exposes the unsettling nature when the ground suddenly shifts beneath their feet and how they must come to terms with their own sense of guilt in order to forgive and carry on.
What sparked the idea for this book?
The initial inspiration was a prompt given by one of my creative writing professors at San Francisco State University. The prompt being, “I don’t remember why I remember this but…” With that exercise, I recalled a long-ago memory of being asked by my grandmother to sit outside on the back porch because she thought I was a tad too dirty to be inside. My grandmother was an utterly delightful woman, but she was quite formal and her house extremely tidy. I remembered she glanced at my knees when she suggested that take my lunch and sit outside. I recall being slightly hurt, but more than that—intrigued. Dirty? What did she mean? So, as I sat on the porch with my peanut-butter and honey sandwich, I looked at my knees which had a dry and had that white film. I remember licking my finger, swiping my knee, and voila, the white film vanished. Thrilled, I got up to tell her the good news, “I wasn’t dirty, I just had dry chapped skin.” I can’t honestly remember anything after that. Fast forward to many decades later when I sat down to write a novel during NaNoWriMo (the annual National Novel Writing Month challenge) and had no preconceived notions what to write about. On day one I decided to riff off that memory—to have my protagonist being told to take her lunch outside, because the grandmother character told her she was too dirty. As my character, Lyla, sat on the porch, I began to draw out the Hawkins’ family backyard: the fence-line, the lawn, the patio furniture, the hills beyond. But what caught my eye as I created this fictional landscape was an enormous oak tree standing just beyond the gray, sun-beaten fence. I had Lyla sit there and stare at the tree, and as I developed the scene, I wondered why was she staring at the tree? What was she looking at exactly? What happened out there? The rest is history.
What drew you to writing literary fiction? I gravitate towards quieter, character-driven novels in my own reading lists versus stories that have big, dynamic plotlines. It’s not that I don’t love a good propulsive plot, but my real fascination with fiction (and in life) resides in what is going on just underneath the story—the attention to language, the use of metaphor and thematic components that push up and against the text, the stuff that in less obvious ways reveal human truths and prods characters to act in the unexpected and often complicated ways they do. Just ask my kids, I’m always investigating and unearthing metaphors in our lives, much to their exasperation and exhaustion. But in all seriousness, it is through metaphor how I often make sense of the world and the human condition and what makes people tick. Plus, I love wordsmithing and paying special attention to language. I rather marvel at the opportunity/challenge to shape and arrange words on the line, using an alphabet of a mere 26 letters to make words and sentences sing. I love manipulating the way words sit next to their neighbors and create a sort of musicality or beat, how the phrasing resonates or aids to not just the sentences/paragraphs, but the overall metaphor/theme, how the juxtaposition of words creates tension or resolution. I can really geek out on that stuff.
What’s your favorite part about writing/being an author? What do you find challenging? The sentence level work. I delight in the tinkering of words and that feeling when I have dialed into just the right frequency or exercised the right beat. There is nothing like discovering the exact word that fits into a sentence like finding a missing jigsaw puzzle piece under the couch. After that, I love the millions of dollars that pour in from the labor of writing 😉
As for the challenges, I suppose it’s everything else from plot to publication.
What do you hope readers will take away from this story? I don’t want to be too prescriptive here, but in this day and age when mental illness and suicide rates are on the rise and thankfully conversations are more widespread to help support and destigmatize depression, anxiety, etcetera, I hope readers (like the old oak tree at the center of the book) come away with a sense of comfort/curiosity/acceptance to the idea that family roots, stories and narratives of who we are run deep, that our bodies hold generational truths, and the fiber of our stories are often buried inside. What rests within and/or hidden underneath each of us permeates our epigenic codes and functions and how we relate, grow and thrive in the world. Like the quote at the opening of the book, The tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky— I think we are all enduring forces straining to win the sky; for some the reach is that much more demanding.
Any words of wisdom you give your pre-published writer self (or to a new writer)?
With the first draft, let ‘er rip. Don’t hold back. Don’t overthink. Be willing to play, to experiment, to discover, and to write with unabashed freedom. We writers, of course, will not keep everything that we vomit onto the page in our initial discovery drafts. But, if we keep too tight of a grip on the reins in that first go around, I am not sure we have the freedom to really explore the open wild plains of a story and what the narratives have to offer. During later drafts, we need to find the courage to scrap those precious lines, those scenes that we love if they don’t ultimately serve the overall narrative arc. Not every gosh darn gem deserves to take permanent residence on the page. I am also a firm believer that the gems we scrap in one story, find their way into other stories/writings, so all is not lost. I also learned this from one of my writing mentors, Pam Houston: “if you think you know what you are writing at the outset, you don’t.” I’m paraphrasing, here, but I think the overall message is don’t be too stuck on your initial idea. Let your characters take your hand and show you what’s what and where the story wants to ultimately go.
What are your interests outside of writing and reading? Pretty much anything out of doors except golf and pool Zumba. I am an avid telemark skier—both in the backcountry and the front country— a nordic skier/biathlete, a surfer, kitesurfer, a wingfoiler, a mountain biker and gravel rider. When spending time outdoors with my family or friends, I’m in heaven. But I do love solitary time in the natural world as well. It is when I am in motion outdoors by myself, that I find myself in a meditative state and can clear the head of worries, concerns, and just live in the precise moment. When indoors, I am mad about jigsaw puzzling, practicing cello or playing stand-up bass Reno Pops Orchestra. I am a founding member of Adventure Risk Challenge’s Board of Directors, a California-based nonprofit with a mission of empowering underserved youth through transformational literary, leadership, and outdoor wilderness experiences. If you want to learn more about the awesome work ARC does and the amazing students we have the honor of working with, check it out here: https://adventureriskchallenge.org
Are you working on a new project? Please tell us about it.
Yes. I am working on my second novel, Traveling in Sees, a foray into magic realism about a boy who orphaned by an earthquake must learn how to navigate harsh environment and a variety of predators in search a new home, by relying on the advice of his deceased parents and grandmother, his own self-determination, and a number etched on the inside of his thigh. It is an attempt at a modern-day fairy tale, examining the ways we detether from our parents during adolesce—what values we cling onto and what we shed during that beastly and awkward time of finding our identity apart from that of our parents. I have now two young adult children, so yeah, I’ve been on both sides of that coin now, and found it both a beautiful and terribly confusing time of growing up.
What was the last book you read? What did you think of it? The last fiction book I had the pleasure of spending time with, many times over, was The Bear by Andrew Krivak, a truly stunning and tender read. I don’t trend towards post-apocalyptic narratives, but this intimate story of a father and his daughter, the last two human inhabitants on Earth, spoke to me in terms of what we teach our children, how to live, how to love, how to survive and how to thrive within the wild, wonderous and sometimes harsh landscape of the natural world and the complex emotional landscape within. It is a truly fascinating story which was recommended to me as I untangle the mystery of crafting the current novel I am working on.
Where can readers find you?
Website:
elizabethatucker.com
Socials:
Instagram liztuckertruckee
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/liz.tucker.777
Upcoming Author Events:
Word After Word, Truckee CA February 13, 2025 (Book Launch Party)
Book Passage, Corte Madera CA February 15, 2025
Annie Bloom’s Books, Portland OR February 27, 2025
Underdog Books, Monrovia CA. March 9, 2025
Garcia Street Books, Santa Fe NM. March 23, 2025 (in conversation with Pam Houston)
Secret World Books and Comics, Highland Park, IL Spring 2025 (Date TBD)
Book Culture, Pittsford NY March 14, 2025
Compass Rose Books, Castine ME July 11, 2025
Brooksville Library, Brooksville ME Summer 2025 (Date: TBD)
Thank you, Elizabeth! The Pale Flesh of Wood is out now.
The Pale Flesh of Wood
For fans of Celeste Ng and Dani Shapiro, this lyrical debut set in twentieth-century Northern California offers a multigenerational braided narrative examining the rippling effects of trauma and perceived fault after a loved one’s suicide.
1953. WWII veteran Charles Hawkins sweet-talks his daughter, Lyla, into climbing the family’s oak tree and hanging the rope for their tire swing. Eager, Lyla crawls along the branch and ties off a bowline, following her father’s careful instructions, becoming elated when he playfully tests the rope and declares the knot to be “strong enough to hold the weight of a grown man. Easy.”
But when her father walks out back one November night and hangs himself from the rope, Lyla becomes haunted by the belief that his death is her fault, a torment amplified by her grief-stricken mother, who sneaks up to the attic and finds comfort in the arms of her dead husband’s sweaters, and a formidable grandmother, who seemingly punishes Lyla by locking her outside, leaving her to stare down the enormous tree rooted at the epicenter of her family’s loss.
Set among the fault-prone landscape of Northern California, The Pale Flesh of Wood is told by three generations of the Hawkins family. Each narrative explores the effects of trauma after the ground shifts beneath their feet and how they must come to terms with their own sense of guilt in order to forgive and carry on.
Author bio:
Elizabeth A. Tucker is a fiction writer, poet, playwright, and sixth-generation Californian living and writing at 6,600 feet above sea level in the Sierra Nevada with her husband and two children. Her work, often rooted in the fault-prone landscape of Northern California, can be found in a host of national and international literary journals including Transfer Magazine, Red River Review, Aroostook Review, Ponder Review, The Bangalore Review, SNReview, Tahoe Blues, and JuxtaProse Magazine.
When not carving words to page, Elizabeth can usually be found anywhere outside or playing her upright bass with the Reno Pops Orchestra. She is a founding board member of Adventure Risk Challenge, a California-based nonprofit with a mission of empowering underserved youth through transformational literary, leadership, and outdoor wilderness experiences.