Michael Morris
Author Interview

Author Interview: Michael Morris

In your acknowledgements you mention the subject of grandparents rights being close to your heart as well as the fact that you grew up in an unstable home as a child. How much of this book came from your actual life experience? Are you Brandon?

Although I'm not Brandon and thankfully wasn't abandoned by my mother, I did have an extremely close relationship with my maternal grandparents. At the heart of the story I think Slow Way Home is a celebration of the grandparent/grandchild relationship. My mom and I had fled an abusive household and found refuge next door to my grandparents. The part of the book that comes from my own life is when Nana asks Brandon to list all of the people who love him – my grandmother constantly did the same thing with me. I look back now and realize just how wise that wonderful woman was, to establish that sense of unconditional love in me, a five-year-old boy.

Author Interview: Michael Morris

Author Interview: Michael Morris

Telling a story from the point of a child narrator is always a great feat in my opinion. It's hard to maintain the childlike innocence while still fully telling the story. I thought you did fantastic job writing from Brandon's point of view. It was obvious that he was a child, but a child with a grown soul inside him due to circumstance. How was it writing from his point of view?

I like to tell people that ignorance is bliss – I wrote my first novel, A Place Called Wiregrass, in the voice of a middle-aged woman. So for me writing from the point of view of an eight-year-old boy was not too difficult. At least I've been a boy! But I think there is a balance in writing from a child's point of view. Even an old soul like Brandon is limited is just how much he knows about human beings and situations beyond his control. I tried to bring simplicity and humor by showing how literally a child can perceive 'a figure of speech.' An example that comes to mind is the day Brandon is picked up by his grandparents and taken to their farm. He's soaking in the tub and overhears his grandparents talking in the kitchen. His grandfather demonstrates his anger at his daughter for abandoning Brandon by saying, "I'd skin her alive as she was standing here right now." Then Brandon tries to picture his grandfather taking the same switchblade used to clean catfish after his mother but he gives up on the idea thinking that his grandfather wouldn't go through with it.

Author Interview: Michael Morris

Author Interview: Michael Morris

This book is largely about relationships and the people we call family. There is a definite theme of family being not just your blood but the people you choose. For Brandon these were people like Bonita, Beau, Josh and Aunty Gina. In the same respect, his blood family - Aunt Lorraine, Mary Madonna, and Mac - were not major players in his life. Do you think it's children in situations like Brandon that find an "extended" family more comforting than their own? Is it a thing of the past? Is it situational, in a place like Abbeville it's more common?

It has been my experience that children in an unstable home situation like Brandon are always looking for someone to cling to – especially a family unit. However, I think that all of us can find what Brandon finds and the truth is that family is often more than blood relatives, it's also made up of those who love us and stand with us during life's hurricanes. The definition of family as community is a central theme with both Slow Way Home and A Place Called Wiregrass. A small town might be more conducive to building such relationships but I the people I know who live in metropolitan places have the networks as well – they might just live in the same building as opposed to living across town. I guess we're all in this thing called life together and there's no denying that we have an inherent need to connect.

Author Interview: Michael Morris

Author Interview: Michael Morris

Is it possible for a mother, like Sophie, to truly love her child but just not be capable of taking care of him?

This question has come up in almost all of the discussions I've had with book clubs. I do feel that Sophie loves Brandon but she is not equipped to give him the stability and nurturing that he needs. I find Sophie to be a haunting character because she never received the help that she needed and drifts along the edges of shame and self-hatred.

Author Interview: Michael Morris

Author Interview: Michael Morris

How will Brandon's relationship with his own children be affected by his past?

I've never been asked this question before and had to give it a great deal of thought. What terrific insight into the story to think of it. Personally, I feel that at the end of the book when Brandon, the adult, returns to North Carolina to settle the score with his aunt that we find him on the road to recovery. He mentions that he has not told his wife all about his past and while I think he spent his early adult years trying to reinvent himself that at the end of the story he is at a point where he is squarely face the demons of the past. And of course bringing his grandmother to live with him is a big first step in that process. I think all of this will make Brandon a better father but I could see him as being somewhat overly protective of his children.

Author Interview: Michael Morris

Brandon was very fortunate to end up with so man people advocating for him. I felt like the part where he stayed with Miss Madelyn was more true-to-life for children in the foster care system. As much as I hated Pete, I felt bad for him. Do you think most abandoned children end up as lucky as Brandon?

Wouldn't it be a perfect world if children who were in Foster Care could wind up in such loving situations with family, like Brandon does? Recently I spoke at the North Carolina Children's Advocacy Conference. Some of the stories I heard about children being tossed around the system and returned to abusive households made me so angry. Often it seems that judges make a knee jerk decision without giving adequate thought to what is in the best interest of the child. There are laws and there's also common sense – often it seems that for some judges following common sense takes more courage. But for those who do stand up for children in the court system – guardian ad litems, advocates, attorneys and good judges – I offer a special God Bless you. We need more of you.

Author Interview: Michael Morris

Did Nana and Poppy make the right decision when they left with Brandon or did he belong with his mother?

Of course from a writing perspective, this is the big conflict that drives the story forward. For me personally, I think they did the right thing because the system failed them. It's interesting that there are 2.5 million grandparents raising grandchildren in this country, yet the majority have no legal rights to the children in their households. These same grandparents save taxpayers billions of dollars saved in Foster Care. Nana and Poppy were risking everything to protect the grandson that they loved. I venture to say that if put in the same situation, my grandparents would have done the same thing.

Author Interview: Michael Morris

Why did Brandon's mother want him so much? Was it simply because he was "hers," almost like a piece of property she couldn't bear to lose to her parents?

Absolutely. Brandon ends up a pawn for Sophie. She loves him but since she is so unstable and can't love herself, she is dependent on having Brandon around because he is "hers." I venture to say that Sophie is the most complicated character in the novel. As one reader recently told me, "I didn't know whether to feel sorry for her or to hate her."

Author Interview: Michael Morris

While in Abbeville, there is an entire storyline about the KKK and the hate crimes they take part in against God's Hospital and Sister Delores. But then nothing came of it. I didn't want to feel like the bad guys won but where was the justice for Sister Delores and her church? What about Alvin?

Since Slow Way Home takes place in the early 1970s when the limits of segregation were still being tested in some areas, the church burning becomes an anthem of sorts for the community. The town, Abbeville, rallies around the church and helps to rebuild it. That's the hope I see behind the crime against Sister Delores and her church -- the hope for building better relationships within the community. Even though Alvin thinks that he wins, in the end he unites the majority of the town. I don't tend to tie up my stories in a neat bow because unfortunately life never operates that way. After the last page has been read, my hope is that the story will continue to evolve in the mind of a reader.

Author Interview: Michael Morris

Why did Beau and Brandon grow apart? Besides Nana and Poppy, the Riley's are the only true family he's known to that point in his life. Were they just a stepping stone along Brandon's way to real happiness?

I like to think that Beau and his family were part of the encounters Brandon had toward healing. When Beau's step-father dies, Brandon sees a person his own age who was in pain and fatherless. While Brandon is able to grow from the experience, Beau's sense of dependence is taken advantage of by Beau's uncle, Alvin, the Klan member who burns Sister Delores's church.

I've been asked if I think that Beau and Brandon ever reconnected as adults and unfortunately, I don't. I think they went in different directions and for Beau it was not for the better.

Author Interview: Michael Morris

What other projects are you working on right now that you can share with us?

I just finished a novel about the longest serving sheriff in Alabama who at 80, loses reelection and is forced to come to terms with a forty year old unsolved murder – a murder in which he sold his family out to protect his political career.

Thank you so much for the thoughtful questions. I appreciate your support and your interest in Slow Way Home.