Del Sandeen provided by Bravenet.com

evolution

...how Sweet Breath evolved from a short story to a novel...

Sweet Breath began as a short story focusing on one family, the Scotts. The Scotts didn't even have a last name in the story. The Coopers, the Davidsons, and Travis didn't exist in the story, either.

I wanted to show how a racist, reprehensible man like Henry Scott was still human, which was why they were the sole family in the story.

Due to some technical issues (and my own fault for never printing it out), my story was lost. I felt there was enough material in it for a novel, however, and so I added the other families. After that, the Coopers became the main focus.

Even though the Coopers may seem to be the more sympathetic family, each character has his or her own complexities so that there are few cut-and-dried "good guys" or "bad guys."

upcoming...

Until I get approval from a publisher, I won't be able to post an excerpt here. However, I'd like to tell you what Sweet Breath is about...

1944, rural Mississippi

The Coopers are a black sharecropping family struggling to survive with dignity in the Jim Crow South. Walter and Stelle Cooper have four children: Eddie, 16; Sarah, 14; Billie, 11; and Aaron, 8. Stelle and Eddie resent Walter for his loathing of education and for forcing Eddie to leave school to work the fields. Walter has succumbed to the norms of the day, which require him to be less than a man, in order to live. To see their husband and father reduced to a back-bowing menial nearly crushes the spirit out of his family.

The Scotts are a white, tenant-farming family on the same farm as the Coopers. Henry and Luann Scott have seven children: Lizzie, 16; Jack, 15; Bo, 13; Hal, 11; Jessie, 9; Ginny, 8; and Charlie, 3. Poorer than all of the farmers around him, Henry Scott still maintains his pride, displaying his manhood by savagely controlling his family. He can barely stand it when Lizzie, his unmarried daughter and favored child, becomes pregnant. She, meanwhile, harbors a secret and the thought of anyone uncovering it terrifies her.

The Davidsons are the farm's elderly owners. With no children of their own, Jim and Esther Davidson rely on the hired man, Wesley Travis. Travis is a brutal man who menaces the farmers and sets out to discover Lizzie's secret.

When Lizzie Scott's child is born, the revelation of paternity leads to murder, retribution, and escape.