Episode #242: Scavenging Dookie

An early rendering of The Scavengers cover art. By Eric Deschamps.

Howdy folks:

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 242. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen.

Ten years ago I wrote a book called The Scavengers. Then I started the sequel. And then…well, as you’ll hear in today’s episode, some life came up. But I’ve kept pecking away at it, and am currently powering through, bound and determined to hand it in before my editor retires.

Also in this episode: A couple of sneak peeks into the sequel, including a passage written after I discovered the nickname I had quite innocently given one character had some other…connotations.

Scroll down for additional photos. And marginalia.

As ever, thank you for listening.

Forward,
Mike

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Another version.

Color added. Getting there.

Final version.

Hardcover dust jacket.

Notes toward first Scavengers book. Interesting to me that much of this made the book, but the one thing underlined and in all caps did not.

Sequel in progress…

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MARGINALIA

(Annotations from books Mike is reading, or annotations related to the episode)

The poetry of Emily Dickinson plays a central role in The Scavengers (and does in the sequel). Maggie and her mother bond over the poems, but Maggie (Ford Falcon, as she prefers) also draws strength from Emily’s example. As this passage from Brenda Wineapple’s White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, indicates, Emily was up against it:

The highlight in the passage below echoes what I tried to create in the character of Maggie/Ford Falcon: a young girl who loves and craves solitude, values her independence, is stubborn, and takes no guff:

Okey-doke folks, off I go. Thanks again.

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The Scavengers is available in hardcover, paperback, and audio. The sequel is available…well, we’ll see.

White Heat is available through BookShop.org and Amazon. (Law requires me to let you know we catch a little commission if you order through those Amazon and BookShop links. Are we good, law?)

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