De’Shawn Charles Winslow
whose debut novel, In West Mills, was published by Bloomsbury in June.
Ifirst had the privilege of reading De’Shawn Charles Winslow’s writing eight years ago, when he was a student in my undergraduate creative writing seminar at Brooklyn College. “Your dialogue is filled with vitality, and through it your characters spring to life,” I wrote to him then. “It
all feels so accurate and true. I also admire the ambition of this tale, covering the cyclical story of a large family. You do an excellent job portraying the ties that bind us to our families, for better and for worse.” A lot has changed in the intervening years: De’Shawn attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and became a teacher in his own right.
What I love about his debut novel, In West Mills, is what I’ve always loved about De’Shawn’s work: the vibrant dialogue, the searingly insightful evocation of relationships over long periods of time, and the focus on powerful female characters. During his childhood, De’Shawn says, “The women in my life are who I spent all my time with and learned everything from.” In West Mills covers the complex but devoted, forty-plus-year friendship between West Mills outsider and nonconformist Azalea “Knot” Centre and West Mills family man Otis Lee Loving. Despite various betrayals and secrets, and despite their very different approaches to life, they each receive sustenance from their unlikely connection.
Knot’s last name is Centre, and she is indeed the center of In West Mills. Did Knot come easily to you, or did it take you a while to find her?