As part of the creative writing series, UT graduate of the creative writing program and Knoxville native, Monica Brashears had a homecoming of sorts at the Hodges Library Lindsay Young Auditorium. Brashears returned to Knoxville as a published author to read his first novel Cotton House.
It really feels good to be home, Brashears said.
Brashears had an enthusiastic audience, a reading that had everyone in the seats of the auditorium Lindsay Young leaning closer to the front, she told the beginning of an intense, image-filled and sometimes funny story.
Brashears explained that she learned by studying poetry how to write what she knows, drawing inspiration from a place of emotion and lived experience. The Knoxville native wrote, in part, about the suffocating lack of life, boredom and stagnation that strongly persists in the small-town south.
A southern gothic with artful undertones of social commentary and riddled with a mix of created and existing southernisms and personal feelings, Brashears’ story follows Magnolia Brown, a 19-year-old broke, stuck and victim of a rural tragedy. . That’s Until A Stranger Named Cotton Came To The Magnolia Gas Station Works In Brashears shared that for a while she worked at the Shell Gas Station on the Strip and offered him a job as a model at her family’s funeral home. Of course, however, things are not quite what they seem.
MFA candidate Josie Tolin and beloved House of Cotton reader Tolin cited a rave review from The New York Times, calling the pool of deepening concern and tension.
The sinister roots of the world inhabited by Magnolia tighten as the story progresses, drawing the reader in, Tolin said. …a subversion of expectations that speaks to Brashear’s masterful storytelling abilities, Tolin said.
Tolin described the Brashears fantasy character created in Magnolia as having an unflappable self-knowledge.
Our faith in Magnolia is unwavering, it’s true, Tolin said. Magnolia is indeed a character with a heart of gold, someone I would follow absolutely anywhere.
Appalachia itself, Brashears history is filled with Knoxville and the rhythmic underpinnings of the folk tales it grew up with. A style that came naturally to her, and then a decision she put intentional effort into during the second edits to her story.
Beyond reading, Brashears shared the process of writing, when she learned about the power not only of words, but also of their transmission. She also shared her experience with the editing and publishing phases, even discussing what went into the design and decision process to choose a cover for her debut novel.
However, Brashears qualified each anecdote to let the crowd know that their experience was unique from what is typical in the world of writing and publishing. A first draft that only took her a month to complete and an editing process that took six months, she explained the obsession and urgency she felt towards her project.
It was exhausting Sitting down with a novel is a commitment, Brashears said. Lots of mind games are playing there. I thought I knew. Then it was a lot of discoveries.
The journey of discovering voice in the novel began when she revisited a dropped short story from her undergrad time at UT. Looking back on it for a piece of flash fiction while working for her MFA at Syracuse University, she realized it could turn into a novel.
Regarding what’s next for Brashears and after House of Cotton, Brashears joked about the potential for a sequel and his interest in the concept of review and repost.
