from author’s website
Meet Robert Gwaltney, writer of Southern fiction and 2023 Georgia Author of the Year for First Novel.
A graduate of Florida State University, I presently reside in Atlanta Georgia with my partner. By day, I serve as Vice President of Easter Seals North Georgia, Inc., a non-profit organization strengthening children and their families at the most critical times in their development. Through my non-profit work, I am a champion for early childhood literacy. In all the hours between, I write.
Raised alongside three feral, younger brothers in the rash-inducing, subtropical climate of Cairo Georgia, I am a lifelong resident of the South. A circumstance, no doubt, leaving an indelible mark upon my voice as a writer.
Aside from sense of place, my writing is influenced and inspired by the literary work of others. As a boy, it was with great obsession, I turned the well-worn pages of Charlotte Brontë’s, Jane Eyre. Wuthering Heights? Yes, another source of adoration. And Truman Capote’s debut novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, I admire with equal reverence along with everything ever written by Tennessee Williams.
Charles Dickens’ Miss Havisham is one of my all-time favorite characters. Many hours I spent playing her, wrapped in an old lace tablecloth borrowed from my mother’s linen closet—my tattered, makeshift wedding dress. Locked away in my boyhood room, I haunted the place, plotting revenge, shooing rats from the wedding cake. “Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy,” I would whisper into the impressionable ear of my lovely Estella. Break their hearts.
As an adult, my literary palate is diverse, reading everyone from the sublime Michael Cunningham to the gifted Jesmyn Ward to the incomparable Ron Rash. Though my tastes have evolved through the years, one constant remains: the impact of literature and art and music upon my writing. And my unrelenting quest to make and find beauty in this world.
ABOUT THE CICADA TREE:
WHEN AN ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD, WHISKY DRINKING, PIANO PRODIGY ENCOUNTERS A WEALTHY FAMILY POSSESSING SUPERNATURAL BEAUTY, HER ENSUING OBSESSION UNLEASHES FAMILY SECRETS AND A CATACLYSMIC PLAGUE OF CICADAS. The summer of 1956, a brood of cicadas descends upon Providence, Georgia, a natural event with supernatural repercussions, unhinging the life of Analeise Newell, an eleven-year-old piano prodigy. Amidst this emergence, dark obsessions are stirred, uncanny gifts provoked, and secrets unearthed.
During a visit to Mistletoe, a plantation owned by the wealthy Mayfield family, Analeise encounters Cordelia Mayfield and her daughter Marlissa, both of whom possess an otherworldly beauty, a lineal trait regarded as that Mayfield Shine. A whisper and an act of violence perpetrated during this visit by Mrs. Mayfield all converge to kindle Analeise’s fascination with the Mayfields.Analeise’s burgeoning obsession with the Mayfield family overshadows her own seemingly, ordinary life, culminating in dangerous games and manipulation, setting off a chain of cataclysmic events with life-altering consequences-all of it unfolding to the maddening whir of a cicada song.
When an eleven year old, whisky drinking, piano prodigy encounters a wealthy family possessing supernatural beauty, her ensuing obsession unleashes family secrets and a cataclysmic plague of cicadas.
PRAISE AND RECOGNITION FOR THE CICADA TREE:
“Following in the magnificent footsteps of Carson McCullers and Harper Lee, Robert Gwaltney creates a wonderful snapshot of the friendship that forms between Analeise and Etta Mae, two eleven-year-old girls in ’50s small town Georgia… This is a book to love and remember, and every book club in America would be wise to snap it up.”- Robert Goolrick, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“The gothic beauty of a relentless Georgia summer is brought to life through Gwaltney’s deliberate details and exquisite imagery, while all the while evil lurks beneath the surface; from where or what the reader does not know but is as convinced by Gwaltney’s expert storytelling as he is.”-Zoe Fishman, bestselling author of Invisible Air and Georgia Author of the Year 2020
“Gwaltney’s Southern Gothic, THE CICADA TREE mesmerizes and seduces, the language redolent and deadly, the characters steeped in secrets and madness, and the whole of it an enthralling and perfect read. Easily my favorite book of the year.”-Kim Taylor Blakemore, bestselling author of After Alice Fell
“This is Southern Gothic with a vengeance—a dark blast of family secrets, strained loyalties, and bitter betrayals. We follow young Analeise Newell with fear and hope, dreading what may happen to her even as we turn the pages. Robert Gwaltney is a writer to watch.”–Christopher Swann, author of Never Turn Back (Crooked Lane Books)
AUTHOR VISITS:
Author visits with Robert Gwaltney are available via NovelNetwork.com.