LHM: Knoxville

 

   The following post contains spoilers for Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son, which you can grab here:

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You can also snag the complete novel, all four installments compiled, for Kindle and paperback:

Lord Have Mercy: The Complete Novel

Driving into the city had put a lump in Mercy’s gut, but this was different. Bittersweet, yes, and tainted, as all his memories were by the relentless knowledge of what happened to Daddy, to Gram. But no matter what tortures this city threw at him, he could never bring himself to hate the water. It had raised him alongside his father, the only mother he’d ever wanted or needed. There was water in Tennessee, sure, the Tennessee River, that fat black snake that curved around Dartmoor and slithered its slow way up to Neyland Stadium. But this was the swamp, and it smelled different, and it tasted different on his tongue when he opened his mouth to inhale, and it coursed through his bloodstream.

As a reader, I can fall in love with any setting. I can luxuriate in any aesthetic, and feel at home in any city, in any kind of house. It's all down to author voice. Descriptive language, and sensory detail, and authenticity. 

As a writer, I don't have strong preferences when it comes to choosing the location of a story - but once I'm committed, then I'm dedicated to making it feel like a real place for readers, whether it's an existing city - what I use most often - or a fantasy landscape. Everything from weather patterns to predominant architecture styles all come into play, and the street view on Google Maps is incredibly helpful. 

With Dartmoor, I knew Mercy was from New Orleans, and a great deal of thought went into making that happen. But the decision to put Ghost's mother chapter in Knoxville was more of an afterthought. At first. 

I had two criteria: I wanted it to be a Southern city, because bikers are a bit of a throwback, and the South felt like a good fit. And I knew it needed to be a college town, or near enough to one to commute, since Ava was going to be in grad school. That eliminated UGA right off the bat - sorry! Just not a fan! I did try to be fair, and Ava's undergrad degree is from Georgia: she wanted a fresh start, ha, and Ghost was happy to send her out of state. I'm a 'Bama fan, so I didn't want to play favorites and send her there - though I will say that my eventual plan is for Cal to get recruited there to play college football.

Eliminating those two schools, UT became the no-brainer option. My mom's family loves Tennessee. There's lots of alumni on that side of the fam, and my great uncle, Ted, was an artist who did a lot of design work for the school. That orange T? That's his! 

Once I made the decision, the reasons started piling up, until I couldn't imagine Dartmoor Inc. being anywhere else. It's a pretty city; hopelessly Southern, but with a mountainous, and more temperate climate than Georgia, with colorful autumn foliage and cool, misty river mornings. I love that it isn't Nashville; that it isn't a bustling, cultural hotspot; it's smaller, and quieter, except on fall Saturdays, and it's much easier to see the Dogs ruling over it than a bigger, busier city. It feels like a non-obvious choice, and that's why I love using it. 

I have family history there; in certain lights, I probably bleed orange. But it's been interesting, unexpected, and enjoyable to find a love for the city through writing about it. It feels like a home away from home, and it's certainly become home for a wayward Dog or two, Mercy most of all. 

In Lord Have Mercy, I included a few lines about the ways he loved and hated New Orleans; the ways it would always be a part of him, and he'd always cherish it, but that he didn't want to be there. It's a haunted place for him. 

But Knoxville is where he learned how to smile again. It's where he fell in love. Where his babies were born. He'll always be Swamp Thing, but there's nowhere else on earth he'd rather be than Knoxville, TN. 

Rocky Top, you'll always be
Home sweet home to me
Good ol' Rocky Top
Rocky Top, Tennessee
Rocky Top, Tennessee

*UT plays Oklahoma tonight. Go Big Orange! Please envision Ghost in his white-base, orange-T baseball cap, taking it off every now and then to check that his hair still looks great. 

He walked into the chapel – the same chapel, with the same table, same chairs, same framed photos and flags that he’d known since he’d come here, feeling then as though he’d lived an entire, miserable life, brought low by terrible grief…only to find that entering this room for the first time, and finding a girl hiding in a cabinet, had been, in fact, the beginning of his life. His real life. His best life.