Chattanooga Times Free Press - ChattanoogaNow
Ed Tarkington talks up his critically acclaimed debut novel
Nashville author Ed Tarkington will be in Chattanooga on Saturday, Dec. 10, for a discussion of his debut novel, “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” now in paperback, at Star Line Books.
A distant cousin of renowned American novelist Booth Tarkington, Ed Tarkington explores the troubled bond between two half brothers in “Only Love,” a suspenseful story of family fealty, scandal and murder fueled by love, jealousy and madness.
NPR calls it “a lush mystery-within- a- coming- ofage- tale-within- a- South- ••• ern-Gothic … interesting, readable and beautifully written,” while the Chicago Tribune declares it a “pitch- perfect f irst novel.”
T h e story is set in the late 1970s in small- town V i rg in - ia, where 8- year- old Richard “Rocky” Askew is temporarily abducted by his half brother Paul in an ill- advised act of vengeance against their f at her. Shortly a f t e r, Paul — known for being a wild child — disap- pears. Rocky’s childhood becomes defined by t he absence of his beloved brother and by his involvement with his new neighbors, Brad and Patricia Culver and their 29- year- old daughter, Patricia.
“Their hands have been on every bad thing that’s ever happened to us,” the teenage Rocky narrates.
Seven years after Paul’s disappearance, a grisly double murder sets the whole town on edge and forces Rocky to reckon with the past.
“It’s a coming- of- age novel,” says Tarkington, “but it is also a Gothic tale with macabre under- tones, a murder mystery in which the damsel- in- dis- tress is also a suspect and a time-capsule view of the imperiled American middle class at a point in history which in some ways foreshadows our current cultural moment. I wanted to capture the feeling of growing up in a family that is both typical and strange, as most families tend to be below the surface.”
A native of central Virginia, Tarkington received an MA from the University of Virginia and Ph.D from the Graduate Creative Writing Program at Florida State. His essays and stories have appeared in Nashville Scene, Memphis Commercial Appeal, Post Road, the Pittsburgh Quarterly, the Southeast Review and elsewhere.