{"id":5767,"date":"2015-02-19T09:14:41","date_gmt":"2015-02-19T09:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=5767"},"modified":"2015-02-23T11:11:58","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T11:11:58","slug":"dogwood-by-lindsay-parnell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=5767","title":{"rendered":"Dogwood by Lindsay Parnell"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Linen Press March 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n

208pp, paperback,<\/strong> \u00a39.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lindsay Parnell’s debut is the story of one girl’s sin, guilt and resurrection. Released from prison on probation, 19-year-old Harper Haley returns to the brutal, sweaty, dogwood-scented landscape of her youth. Chronicling her homecoming and struggle for rehabilitation, Parnell delivers a pitch-perfect account of three girls growing up in Virginia, USA.<\/p>\n

This impressive novel from a noted short-story writer is attracting a powerful critical response. Paul Bailey said: \u2018Lindsay Parnell\u2019s dialogue has a startling and exciting
\nimmediacy. Her American South has its literary roots in Flannery O\u2019Connor and Eudora Welty, but with a difference. Her characters swear a lot, smoke a lot, drink a lot, and do everything to believable excess. This is a really promising debut.’<\/p>\n

‘Parnell\u2019s work is that rare beast \u2013 tender and brutal, beautiful and raw. Her prose sings off the page, though it\u2019s with the voice of a debauched choir boy,’ said Heidi James, author of Wounding.<\/em><\/p>\n

bookoxygen<\/em> readers can now sample an extract from this powerful first work from an impressive young talent.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

All the things that happened happened in summer. Maybe that\u2019s because folks sin in the summer months more than any other season. Sinning is easier done in the sticky months with less clothes and when the sun stays out, spitting its hot breath into the dry ground until almost midnight. The sun\u2019s never weak, not never.<\/em><\/p>\n

Nothing much happened before Caro. Who I turned out to be started the day I first saw Caro and her sweaty face in the woods. The day Caro showed up is the day all this started \u2014which is funny because I known Collier forever but the day Caro showed up was the first summer we started. The first summer we realized there was nothing to do but be bored. Slinking from house to house like lizards hiding under rocks to escape the stink of heat. Or like truck stop whores who bounce from one backseat to another. Our bodies moved because we made them, they did what we wanted. It was the first summer we got lazy enough to start acting like the women who made us, and the first summer we started being bad. Collier\u2019s mama Donna said a Jezebel is born damned and she\u2019ll never be saved. Everything that ever happened to us happened in summer. Always.<\/em><\/p>\n

Caro shows up the same June our Mother shatters the Willie and Waylon record on the kitchen floor because it\u2019s nothing but a cracker\u2019s gospel garbage. The June Caro shows up she\u2019s seven and I\u2019m seven and Collier\u2019s nine. It\u2019s the June I love listening to Leave Home on the back porch after our daddy goes to bed, sitting on our Mother\u2019s lap. I\u2019m seven and it\u2019s the first summer She accidentally burns me with Her cigarette. I wince when She blows on the raw pink flesh then kisses my neck. She apologizes through tears with a mouth that\u2019s poison slick and it\u2019s the first time I know me and Her don\u2019t have the same skin anymore. That we don\u2019t like the same types of touch and pain. I\u2019m seven and no matter how hard I press my own flesh into Hers, we don\u2019t have the same body no more.<\/em><\/p>\n

Seven, Seven and Nine<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the small pocket of trees hidden from Collier\u2019s mama\u2019s perch in the kitchen, Collier and Harper stride to the furthest corner of Donna\u2019s acres. Collier leads Harper by the hand to the very back of the woods then pulls the joint from behind her ear.<\/p>\n

\u2018My Mama don\u2019t like when we touch Her things,\u2019 Harper says.<\/p>\n

\u2018She got a million of em. She won\u2019t miss just one.\u2019 The dope cigarette is pinched between Collier\u2019s teeth while her small hands fumble with Tommy\u2019s confederate flag lighter. \u2018Sides, She sleep all day.\u2019 She flicks until her thumb is red and worn. Quick sparks ignite in flashing breaths before hiding again and the lighter cools.<\/p>\n

\u2018Hey,\u2019 this real skinny girl calls to them. She\u2019s standing on the broken roots of a tree trunk split during an early-morning thunderstorm, and holding a half-eaten Popsicle that\u2019s melting onto her fingers. Rotting bark curls off the tree limbs like flesh scraped clean off somebody\u2019s bones. She is Harper\u2019s reflection, long hair with dark eyes and gangly limbs, colt-like, untamed. \u2018That\u2019s not how ya do it.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Bet you don\u2019t know how neither,\u2019 Collier shouts.<\/p>\n

The girl walks to them, tonguing the last bite of her Popsicle before tossing the cherry-stained stick onto the ground. She shoves her open palm towards Collier. \u2018Give it here.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I know how to do it\u2014seen Luce do it a million times.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yeah, my Mama done it a million times,\u2019 Harper says.<\/p>\n

\u2018But ya didn\u2019t learn. Give it here, cmon. I\u2019ll show you right.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t give my stuff to strangers.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018My name\u2019s Caro. Now give it here.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Kinda name is that?\u2019<\/p>\n

The girl rolls her eyes, places a hand on each hip and spits thick red saliva on the dying tree.<\/p>\n

\u2018Named for my daddy\u2019s mama, Carolyn Naylor. But my mama Tillie says she\u2019s just some dirty cracker, just like my daddy is\u2014he aint dead but we pretend he is\u2014so my mama call me Caro instead.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018That\u2019s better than Carolyn. I like Caro.\u2019 Harper plucks the joint from Collier\u2019s lips and offers it to the girl with a Popsicle stained mouth and a sweaty face. \u2018I\u2019m Harper. That there\u2019s Ann-Collier, cept don\u2019t nobody call her Ann-Collier. Just Collier.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018My mama do sometimes.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yeah, but Donna aint her real mama cause Collier didn\u2019t come outta her. Collier don\u2019t know who she came out of but we think her real mama prolly dead or somethin.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018She better be,\u2019 Collier mumbles.<\/p>\n

\u2018Well I hope she dead too then.\u2019 Caro gently bites the joint and presses her lips together. A small flame ignites on her first try as she slowly lowers her head, letting the tip catch. The paper burns black and the body\u2019s knotted tail glows as she inhales, her mouth making small caves beneath her cheekbones. Smoke leaks from the right corner of her mouth in a thick ribbon, its hips swaying as it rises towards the treetops then disappears. Red embers flare as she caps the lighter and inhales still. She shuts her eyes and pulls the joint from her lips, sputtering.<\/p>\n

\u2018You got a boyfriend taught you that?\u2019 Harper searches the treetops and sunlight for Caro\u2019s smoke but it\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n

\u2018Nah.\u2019 She chokes as Collier gently slaps her back. \u2018My daddy Dennis smoke more dope than Satan do\u2014that\u2019s what my mama Tillie says\u2014\u2019<\/p>\n

Since that day we all been drunk on each other. We shared everything too. Clothes, razors and safety pins, beds, boys, pills and secrets. But when I left the first time we all stopped sharing everything because we couldn\u2019t no more.<\/em><\/p>\n

After the first time I left, Caro called every week and visited when she could. Phone calls slowed when she started working, and then came even less when she left for school. Caro got herself into this college that was pretty far away. But on your sixth birthday, Tillie brought you and Caro to see me. Your eyes were real glassy and dark. You looked more like Her than our daddy and you wore this dirty Mickey Mouse t-shirt that looked like it had been worn every day for a month without a wash because it probably hadn\u2019t been. Caro gave me a gift to give to you and we pretended like I\u2019d bought it myself even though we all knew it was a lie. You tore up the paper and smiled something wonderful when you put the baseball glove on your hand. You said thanks and kissed me gentle on the mouth. Then you sat on the floor, tying up the glove\u2019s laces and letting your hands feel the leather.<\/em><\/p>\n

Collier called the first Thursday of every month for six months then nothing for a year after\u2014not a letter or a card or a call or a visit. Nothing. Then she shows up on my seventeenth birthday. They told me I had a guest so I waited in the visiting room by myself for twenty minutes just sitting there. Then, without saying why she didn\u2019t come, they took me back. I slept for fourteen hours straight. Tara Hackett didn\u2019t say nothing or touch me, she just let me sleep. I slept for fourteen hours with no dreams, no nightmares, no nothing. Caro called the next week and told me they wouldn\u2019t let Collier in because she had been real drunk and caused a scene and that they found a knife with a red handle in her back pocket. Caro told me after all that happened, Collier didn\u2019t leave her mama\u2019s house and cried for days and days and days. I was glad she did.<\/em><\/p>\n

Caro is the smartest person I\u2019ve ever known and Collier was the second most beautiful person I\u2019ve ever known. There was always something that\u2019s been real tempting about Collier and the way she was. \u2018Can\u2019t blame her wild nature,\u2019 Donna used to say to everyone, but mostly Bart and the other cops. But Collier didn\u2019t have a wild nature, she just liked tempting other people and being tempted herself. Temptation is a funny thing. It crawls at your skin, making you itch for something you know is real bad for you. \u2018Get rid of it\u2019, they say. \u2018Don\u2019t touch things that\u2019ll burn you\u2014don\u2019t put something in your mouth if it\u2019s poison.\u2019 They say it because they never been in the garden, never tasted the apple themselves. They never spoke to the serpent like I have, and they never met Collier.<\/em><\/p>\n

Nineteen, Nineteen and Twenty-One<\/strong><\/p>\n

Beyond the thick lot of oak trees sits a dirty blue pickup. The bass of Hey Ladies bumps from its busted speakers and the truck\u2019s exhaust breathes grey filth into the heat. Collier\u2019s mama\u2019s trees are so big no matter how hard you try, your fingers don\u2019t touch when you hug them. Their bright green leaves wilt in the humid stink. Hanging limp on their fractured branches, they seem to sweat just as much as people do. Collier\u2019s mama\u2019s earth sinks into itself with its empty creek beds of jagged rocks, sticks and broken roots attached to nothing\u2014a barren womb exhaling dust and ash into the air. Barely anything grows, and what does has a short, dry life, except for those trees.<\/p>\n

Walking up the hill, Harper retraces their dead trail from before. A path about a foot wide and so worn in brown earth, grass can\u2019t grow no matter how hard Collier\u2019s mama prays. Donna tried to make that path grow, every spring and summer, yelling, \u2018Girls, get off the path. Girls\u2014I said get off the grass. I\u2019ll skin you alive, Ann-Collier, so stay off the damn grass already.\u2019 But Collier would just smile to herself and drag her heels through the freshly laid grass seed, skipping with lead heavy feet down the chalky trail the three girls made together.<\/p>\n

Collier sits on the truck bed with her legs dangling off the tailgate, the soles of her shoes just short of brushing the ground. Her honeysuckle hair falls down her back and is longer than Harper remembers and she knows she remembers everything. Collier is still slender, flat chested with long, tanned limbs. She turns away from the woods and a leafless limb strikes a thin shadow down the middle of her face. Her body has the same bony and bulbous hinges as before, scarred elbows and knees\u2014marks of a body with good use. Collier\u2019s body knows use, knows scrapping and running and sunbathing and sinning. Her body has been used because she\u2019s willed it to. Smiling, she looks how she\u2019s always looked\u2014convicted, drunk, resurrected, raising a red plastic cup to her lips followed with a drag from a cigarette. A girl Harper has never seen before, a girl with real black hair, sits next to Collier.<\/p>\n

Time slips from Harper\u2019s mouth in shallows breaths as she stands still on the sterile earth.<\/p>\n

\u2018Haaahhhpuhhhhhh,\u2019 Collier yells, stubbing the cigarette against the sole of her shoe.<\/p>\n

Collier throws her arms around Harper\u2019s waist, lifting her off the ground. Pressing her body into Collier, she feels skin she knows almost as well as her own. Collier\u2019s summer scent is weed masked with vanilla, sweat and ditch drink, like always. They stand together on the ground, holding each other. Collier gently pushes her hips into Harper, inhaling her, until she\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

\u2018You look good.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yeah, so do you,\u2019 Harper says, as her eyes drift from Collier and settle onto Tommy\u2019s truck. The front fender is bent, hanging off the frame at a skewed angle. The hubcaps are real rusted and the bed of the truck is littered with rotting newspapers, empty green beer bottles and old paint cans.<\/p>\n

\u2018You got bigger tits.\u2019<\/p>\n

The girl with the black hair rolls her eyes. Collier\u2019s face is painted with a wide grin.<\/p>\n

\u2018And for you\u2014\u2019 Collier skips to the driver\u2019s side door and retrieves a paper bag from the front seat. Handing it to her, Collier gives her a peck on the cheek, leaving a sour stamp on her skin. \u2018Bit late, but Happy Birthday.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yeah, thanks.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Nineteen.\u2019 Collier drinks from her cup until it\u2019s empty. She hands it to the girl with black hair who fills it with boxed white wine and cheap vodka. \u2018You been home?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018No.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018He\u2019ll pitch a fit\u2014your daddy\u2019ll pitch a fit you came to me first.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Good, I hope he do.\u2019 The bag\u2019s weight pulls at Harper\u2019s wrist. Grasping it tighter, she holds the familiar bottleneck, feeling a pulse in her fingertips and throat. \u2018But he don\u2019t know I\u2019m here.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018You, uh\u2014you know Denise livin in your Mama\u2019s house? She\u2019s in there pretendin she aint a piece shit.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I heard. Caro told me on the phone.\u2019 Harper casts her gaze into the treetops, searching for more sun and more air and more sky. \u2018Who\u2019s this?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Gina, used to go to school with Tommy.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Hi\u2014\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yeah\u2014I know, Ann-Collier told me. So, you let some dyke fuck you in prison or what?\u2019<\/p>\n

Collier grabs her by the throat and pushes her into the bed of the truck, thrusting Gina\u2019s skull into the metal planks one, two, three times.<\/p>\n

\u2018Knock that shit off,\u2019 Collier hisses, her voice barely above a whisper. She releases her neck and Gina coughs, wheezing as she sits up with pink lines of Collier\u2019s grasp already appearing on her throat. Collier is never one to raise her voice and she exhales as her lips taste the cup.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sorry.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018What\u2019s at, Gina?\u2019 A smile curls at the corners of Harper\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n

\u2018I said sorry.\u2019 Gina\u2019s so weak and pathetic Harper almost feels sorry for her. Almost. Collier collects people and their bodies like Harper collects words, hiding them until she\u2019s bored enough to forget them. Gina will be tossed out like the others always are. Nameless and forgotten, faceless with big tits and small waists, the way it\u2019s always been.<\/p>\n

\u2018You here for summer?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m staying here for a while.\u2019 She\u2019s rubbing her own neck and is a single shallow breath from tears. She won\u2019t meet Harper\u2019s eyes or smile.<\/p>\n

\u2018Florida didn\u2019t work out,\u2019 Collier says.<\/p>\n

\u2018What happen?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Open your gift, gone then.\u2019<\/p>\n

Harper opens the bag and pulls an unmarked bottle with brown liquid and a dirty plastic bag with a dozen white tablets.<\/p>\n

\u2018Welcome home.\u2019<\/p>\n

She smiles, almost means it. Three long swigs burn Harper\u2019s throat.<\/p>\n

\u2018You want a cup?\u2019 Gina says.<\/p>\n

\u2018Don\u2019t dirty one for me.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m real glad you back.\u2019 Collier eyes are illuminated, deep, and the prettiest shade of blue there\u2019s ever been. Her face is all smile and she looks to the ground because she can\u2019t help but laugh.<\/p>\n

\u2018Where\u2019s Caro at? Where\u2019s she?\u2019 Harper says.<\/p>\n

\u2018I dunno\u2014I aint her mama.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Where\u2019s she? Tell me where she is\u2014\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Workin I guess. She found herself other shit to do\u2014\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018What\u2019d you say to her? Why aint she here? I called her\u2014she knows. Why aint she here?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Christ, perk up\u2014she be round soon.\u2019 Collier\u2019s smile fades and her face eases. \u2018Jesus\u2014relax. Don\u2019t cry about it.\u2019<\/p>\n

Harper tongues two tablets. \u2018Where you livin now?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018My mama\u2019s.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Where you stayin then, Gina?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018With her and Tommy.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Course you are. Why ya\u2019ll here? Shouldn\u2019t Tommy be practicin in Florida?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018He don\u2019t play there no more.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018What happen?\u2019<\/p>\n

Collier jams her hand into Harper\u2019s front pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. She flicks the top open and plucks one from the box, her hand lingering at the seam of the pocket\u2019s stitching.<\/p>\n

\u2018Well,\u2019 Collier begins, the cigarette dangling from her lips, \u2018We went out one night in Tallahassee and there was this girl all over him. Hangin on him and rubbin on him and all that.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018You hit her?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Nah\u2014I liked Tallahassee. It was nice. He took me with him, you know? Didn\u2019t care what he did do or didn\u2019t do. I owed him.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018You don\u2019t owe him nothin.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2014so this girl is all over him. She\u2019s just a kid. It got late so me and Gina went home but he never came back that night. Next mornin, Tommy comes stumblin in then gets this phone call. Turns out the kid from the night before is fourteen years old and told her folks Tommy had at her. Then her folks tell the cops that some outfielder from Florida State was out drinkin and had at their little girl after he slipped her somethin.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Did he?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Did he what?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Did he?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t know.\u2019 Collier exhales a halo of smoke that hangs above her blonde crown. \u2018His business aint mine, but then he gets benched. They go and piss test him and he fails that, so he gets kicked off the team. He loses his scholarship and all that money. So guess where at lands us? They can\u2019t get rid of us, now can they? Not even you, girl.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018He get arrested?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Nah, we left Tallahassee soon as he got kicked out. Dunno what happen to the girl\u2014school paid her folks I guess. But he can\u2019t play no more. Nobody\u2019ll take him now.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yeah, cause he\u2019s a fuckin piece a trash.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018What\u2019s at?\u2019<\/p>\n

The heat from the bottle floods Harper\u2019s mouth and sinks into her throat, then belly. She takes the cigarette from Collier\u2019s lips and places it between her own. \u2018You aint half as blind as you is lazy.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018We aint together no more.\u2019 Collier forces a smile.<\/p>\n

\u2018Liar.\u2019 The warmth in Harper\u2019s throat and chest spreads from her arms to her legs and back again. Her head is light and it\u2019s like her insides are hugging her, pulling her closer into herself, making her feel whole.<\/p>\n

\u2018You look more like your Mama then when you went in. That\u2019s your curse.\u2019<\/p>\n

Harper smiles because it\u2019s the easiest thing to do then flicks the spent cigarette butt against a tree. Gina\u2019s eyes are cast on the ground and Collier smiles still.<\/p>\n

\u2018Love ya more than all of em, Harper. I do.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published by Linen Press<\/p>\n

Caro is the smartest person I\u2019ve ever known and Collier was the second most beautiful person I\u2019ve ever known. There was always something that\u2019s been real tempting about Collier and the way she was. \u2018Can\u2019t blame her wild nature,\u2019 Donna used to say to everyone, but mostly Bart and the other cops. But Collier didn\u2019t have a wild nature, she just liked tempting other people and being tempted herself. Temptation is a funny thing. It crawls at your skin, making you itch for something you know is real bad for you […] in Authors and Extracts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors-and-writing","category-extracts-and-short-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5767"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5811,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5767\/revisions\/5811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}