San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Coming home to Texas
Author brings fantasy series to Houston as she explores connections
Whether discussing characters or plot twists, family or friends, neighborhoods or domiciles, Jess Elle finds her way back to home. She circles the concept repeatedly, a formidable task because the Houston native clutches closely an expansive definition of home.
It surfaces in conversation in varied forms: homeownership; the peripatetic life of a military family; the ways neighborhood stores and people leave an impression and sometimes fade away. Following the final page of her second book, “Ashes of Gold,” Elle thanks “Houston, the southeast side, off Scott between Sunnyside and
Third Ward. Thank you for the magic you inspire, the greatness you produce.”
Last year the writer — who publishes as J. Elle — contributed her own magic from Third Ward of Houston, which was written into her debut novel, “Wings of Ebony,” as East Row. Her conjurer was Rue, a teenage girl whisked away from East Row after her mother was killed and taken to Ghizon, an island full of magic, where she learned she possessed great power as a half-god, half-human. Though it was Elle’s first book, “Wings of Ebony” was an immediate bestseller. Now she has completed Rue’s story with the release of “Ashes of Gold.”
Elle points to the book’s narrative twists as “a chance to flex my plotwriting skills a little bit.” She continues to pry at the notion of home, particularly as it relates to her protagonist.
“This is probably me bleeding into the page, but really, ultimately, home is a connection with people,” Elle says. “So much of who we are is in the ways we connect with people. I’m used to moving a lot, and you come to new places with a certain guardedness. You know your roots can’t be too deep if you’re going to be out in two or three years. That doesn’t mean you don’t have friends. But you don’t get too comfortable.
“And I think that’s a relatable concept to so many in my community. I’ve done personal research into my ancestry as a Black, African American woman. You see things that are exciting and traumatic.”
For just a moment, Elle and Rue melt into one sojourner.
“I can’t help but wonder, am I good enough to tell a nuanced story about this history? I don’t want to misstep. I want to be worthy enough to say something. And in the story, that’s what Rue learns: Worthiness isn’t Black or white. It’s what we divine internally.”
Elle called “Wings of Ebony” her “love letter to Black kids in Houston.”
The book was a hit beyond the city, but readers in Houston were particularly drawn to it.
“The community was drawn to J. Elle because of her commitment to that community,” says Terri Hamm, owner of Kindred Stories, a Third Ward bookstore. “The flow of inspiration is beautiful to so many here — that she was so inspired to write by her upbringing in Third Ward. There’s something beautiful and pure about the love she has for this neighborhood, and it showed in her writing.”
Hamm read “Wings of Ebony” during last year’s freeze. “It left me with a feeling of pride and belonging,” she says.” Knowing there’s so much beauty in what others may deem as not beautiful. She showed a vibrant community.”
Elle — and Rue — spend less time in East Row in the second book. But that’s largely because the scope is so much broader as she expands her narrative. The book is full of allusions and nods to writers past, from Shakespeare to Shakur. As Rue ponders her increasing role in a resistance against a malevolent Chancellor in Ghizon, she thinks, “All eyes on me.” Later in the book, Julius, a connection to her life back in Houston, texts her: “Be true to you.”
Elle fills “Ashes of Gold” with various allegorical references. There are toppled totems and statues and allusions to the ways the Tulsa massacre of 1921 was pushed from historical codification. The Chancellor, Elle writes, made certain his “treachery was scrubbed from the island’s textbooks.”
But our narrator informs: “Bones whisper from their graves if you listen hard enough.”
By splitting time between Houston and Ghizon, Rue at the end of the first book is still seeking to define herself between the home where she grew up and a magical ancestral land. Elle specifically wanted to confront her character with “imperfect choices.”
“The villain in the second book is the system,” she says. “I wanted to explore how the system creates these imperfect choices for people who are stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
Rue’s connections in Houston and Ghizon are both shored up and tested. She deals with the complications of betrayals and love.
“It was important to me to give Rue a love story,” Elle says. “Heroines can’t just exist on the pages of stories to defy racism. It’s a disservice to her humanity to write her into the book just to battle racists. The full breadth of her humanity should be represented. She should love. She should have crushes. She should be kissed. That’s why a big focus in this book is Black love. I don’t think you can fundamentally empathize with the community and with Black trauma if you don’t grasp the concept of Black love. You have to understand what’s taken. It was important to let people walk in Rue’s shoes that way.”