Saturday, September 19, 2015

What is Shelley Pearsall reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Shelley Pearsall, author of The Seventh Most Important Thing.

One book she tagged:
Guests on Earth by Lee Smith who is one is the very best at the art of creating characters. I was captivated by the voice of Evalina—a young girl who grows up in Asheville’s Highland Mental Hospital in the 1930’s and 1940’s, when Zelda Fitzgerald was a frequent patient...[read on]
About The Seventh Most Important Thing, from the publisher:
Shelley Pearsall’s story of anger and art, loss and redemption, is a transformative read that will appeal to fans of Lisa Graff’s Lost in the Sun and Vince Vawter’s Paperboy.

One kid. One crime. One chance to make things right.

It was a bitterly cold day when Arthur T. Owens grabbed a brick and hurled it at the trash picker. Arthur had his reasons, and the brick hit the Junk Man in the arm, not the head. But none of that matters to the judge—he is ready to send Arthur to juvie for the foreseeable future. Amazingly, it’s the Junk Man himself who offers an alternative: 120 hours of community service . . . working for him.

Arthur is given a rickety shopping cart and a list of the Seven Most Important Things: glass bottles, foil, cardboard, pieces of wood, lightbulbs, coffee cans, and mirrors. He can’t believe it—is he really supposed to rummage through people’s trash? But it isn’t long before Arthur realizes there’s more to the Junk Man than meets the eye, and the “trash” he’s collecting is being transformed into something more precious than anyone could imagine....

Inspired by the work of American folk artist James Hampton, award-winning author Shelley Pearsall has crafted an affecting and redemptive novel about discovering what shines within us all, even when life seems full of darkness.
Visit Shelley Pearsall's website.

Writers Read: Shelley Pearsall.

--Marshal Zeringue