SPOTLIGHT: We'll Fly Away by Bryan Bliss @brianbliss @greenwillowbook
We'll Fly Away
by Bryan Bliss
Spotlighting Bryan Bliss's We'll Fly Away today!
Continue below for a synopsis, about the author and a Q&A!
HAPPY PUBLISHING DAY!
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Publish Date: May 8, 2018
Hardcover
416 Pages
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary
Inspired by his experience as a press witness to an
execution fifteen years ago, We’ll Fly Away is
Bryan Bliss’s breakout novel. Wisecracking Toby and reliable Luke are
lifelong friends living in a dead-end North Carolina town who dream of escaping
to Iowa on the tails of Luke’s college wrestling scholarship. Both come from
broken homes—Toby’s father is viciously abusive, while Luke’s mother is absent
and neglectful. But their bond begins to sour during their senior year of high
school as they butt heads over first love, family pressures, and their futures. Uniquely told through Luke’s letters from death row and a third-person
narrative, We’ll Fly Away unravels the
unfortunate and horrific events that led to Luke’s incarceration.
Bliss’s unforgettable characters are “vividly rendered . . . complex,
deeply human and deeply flawed” (Booklist, starred review). We'll Fly Away is an
emotional powerhouse that explores the heavyweights of the human experience—domestic
abuse, loneliness, poverty, survival, friendship, forgiveness, and love—that
will haunt readers well after the last page is turned.
Bryan Bliss lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with
his family. He spent 20 years in North Carolina, though, which is why he sets
his teen novels there! He holds an MFA from Seattle Pacific University. He is
the author of No
Parking at the End Times and Meet Me Here. Learn more at www.bryanbliss.com.
Q&A
1.
You were a press witness to an
execution, which led you down this path to eventually write WE’LL FLY AWAY.
What effect did this experience have on you?
I’ve always been against the death penalty, but it was more of an academic position up until that point. As a journalist, I was supposed to be objective—to report the facts. But the indignity and injustice of what happened in the room was a turning point. Seeing a man mouth his last words to family—to ask forgiveness from his victim’s children—from behind soundproof glass, strapped to a gurney, made me question how any of us can be objective in the face of horror. I knew that night that I wouldn’t be a reporter for much longer. I wanted to do more. A few months later, I was enrolled in graduate school to study theology, which was also (even though I didn’t know it at the time) the beginning of a long path toward writing fiction.
2.
How did your theological background
influence the writing of this book?
My knee-jerk response to this question is:
not at all! Most of that, however, comes with my own experiences with the
theological shallowness of many popular “religious” novels. But in all honesty,
my theological worldview influences everything I write. Specifically, in We’ll
Fly Away, I wanted to engage with the idea that nobody is beyond
redemption—nobody is unforgivable. This is an easy thing to say, but it is
easily tested when you’re talking about the women and men on death row. Yes,
they’ve done terrible and horrendous things. But to think they are somehow
stuck or defined by that one terrible moment is . . . well, it’s something I
will never believe. Sister Helen Prejean graciously let me use a quote for the
book’s epigraph, and I think it says it best: “It’s easy to forgive the
innocent. It’s the guilty who test our morality.”
3. “None
of us are ever finished,” inspired by Sister Helen’s quote, is a key line from
the book. If we are not defined by our choices or our actions, then how would
you say we define ourselves and our place in the world?
So much of the conversation around capital
punishment comes, in my mind, with a baked-in idea of how justice works. It’s
very binary, very black and white. There are good people (those who are not in
prison) and bad people (those who are), and instead of seeing “good” and “bad”
as a sliding scale, something that can shift wildly from moment to moment
across our lives, we instead choose to throw people away. In that mindset,
there is no way a person can ever change, never mind giving them actual
opportunities to grow or transform or learn. We define ourselves, then, by allowing
ourselves the room to make mistakes. The room to grow and change. Does this
mean a person shouldn’t pay for their crimes? Of course not. But I’d suggest
that forcing a person to live with their head under an axe, dehumanizing them
at every single opportunity, and on top of all that, telling them they have to
be the same “evil” person for the rest of their life, is about as barbaric as
it gets.
4.
During your years of processing the
execution, you wrote letters to death row inmates. Can you explain the role that
letter writing has for the imprisoned, such as Luke, versus those on the
outside?
I started corresponding with inmates
about ten years ago and the experience has been transformational. I can’t speak
to how it affects the men I write, but many of them are very lonely, shockingly
isolated, and are looking for any sort of human connection. Writing letters is
inherently intimate. It requires work and time. It shows our mistakes, our
messiness, and the process of writing down your thoughts often leads to
unexpected insights into your own life. But that’s secondary, honestly. For me,
writing letters is a real way to affect change, even on a one-to-one basis.
It’s a way to be a constant presence. A way to say: I’m not going anywhere, no
matter what. Most of the time, we’re only talking about the weather, sports, or
books. Ordinary topics that, I think, help the men feel a sense of normalcy,
even if only for a brief moment.
5.
You also did a lot of research on
capital punishment. What are a few books that you’d recommend for a teen
looking to explore the subject more?
The first book I ever read on the subject
was Dead Man Walking, by Sister Helen Prejean. I was a senior in high
school and, if I’m being honest, had no idea what the book was about—but the
title spoke to me in a way that I didn’t quite understand. The rawness of the
writing, as well as the subject, convicted me. From there, I’ve read a number
of great books over the years. Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson is
heartbreaking and, thankfully, a bestseller at the moment. The Executioner’s
Song by Norman Mailer is dense and, at times, unwieldy, but another
must-read. And then, while not about capital punishment per se, I’d add both The
New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindess by Michelle
Alexander and Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by
Matthew Desmond, because both books get at the heart of the conversation.
6. A lot of the imagery from the book seems to evoke a predator vs.
prey focus– from Luke’s wrestling matches to Toby’s abusive relationship with
his dad. The characters seem to constantly seek various ways of escape, whether
physically or psychologically. Do you see We’ll
Fly Away as a story about the fight for survival?
Survival
is key to the book. It’s one of the reasons I wanted Luke to be a wrestler. So
much about wrestling is about how much you’re willing to endure. How far you
can push yourself. Will you keep going when the other person stops? It’s also
the reason Toby and Luke’s friendship is so meaningful. They have survived
together. They’ve seen each other in their best and worst moments. There’s
strength in that kind of survival. But, speaking from my own experience, that
sort of hard living also brings about fractures that stretch across every part
of your life—fractures you never see until something snaps and suddenly you are
struggling to pay the power bill or put food on the table. People who come from
economically disadvantaged backgrounds know this dance all too well. It means
there’s always a heightened sense of urgency to everything in your life. That
everything is held loosely. That at any point, your entire life could become a
series of reactions that can spin you out of control quicker than you ever thought
possible. That’s the world Luke and Toby live in and I think it’s the reality
for many, many teenagers.
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