This gem of a book has set my heart aflutter. This is a wonderful debut about a gay man who flees (with his much younger lover) to his mother’s home after his own home has been destroyed by the fires that ravaged so much of Malibu. He, his mother (a former actress), and his boyfriend have to figure out a way to navigate the waters of this new life together. Humor, tension, tenderness, acceptance, family. It’s all here and it’s written with such authenticity. It’s relatable and real, and I hope you give yourself the gift of reading this book.
Check out this post from the author, Bill Gaythwaite. And check out his talk on Five Minutes with...here. Enjoy!
— Virginia
Hello Librarians,
I am so pleased that my debut novel Underburn has been recently published. I’m not sure if I ever expected it would happen. My short stories have been appearing in little magazines for many years, but friends would often ask, “When you are you going to write that novel?” as if it was an errand I had simply forgotten.
However, I honestly didn’t set out to write a novel. Underburn started as a text. I have close friends in California who lost their home to a wildfire in 2018. They had moved in with family temporarily. It was a terribly sad time, but rather heroically they were trying to find some humor in their living situation ― landing with elderly parents who were somewhat challenging and set in their ways. They told me a couple of funny stories, so I turned one of them into a micro fiction piece and sent it to them as a text. I think they were amused. Around this same time, I stumbled upon Nancy Sinatra from 1966, singing her hit, These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ on YouTube with some backup dancers. I started wondering about those dancers and the lives they have led since that performance and how one of them just might have been impacted by the recent wildfire. That gave me Iris Flynn, my first character, and got the plot moving. I was drawn to the idea of the past intruding on everyone in the novel as they deal with unforeseen circumstances. My favorite authors, writers like Joan Silber, Sue Miller, and Elizabeth Strout do a wonderful job of depicting poignant characters who muse about the path not taken or what brought them to their present circumstances. This was something I tried to do with Underburn, hopefully with some humor and compassion.
I do need to mention the influence of libraries in my life. My mother started the library in my elementary school and worked as its chief volunteer. I would see her almost every day in that context, very happy in her work. She continued there, even after I’d moved on to middle school and high school. The library was a big deal to my family. I remember quite clearly that it was cause for celebration in our home when we got our first library card, like getting a driver’s license. My father was a great reader, but we didn’t have much extra cash to purchase books, so he treated our trips to the library as if they were outings, as if we were going to the zoo or a ball game. I still remember the pleasure he took in choosing his books and in caring for them ― which was a wonderful example for me. My parents have passed, but I imagine how happy they would be to know that I would have my own book in a library one day.
— Bill Gaythwaite
