Some journeys feel like a stroll through a park. Others are more like a trek through the wilderness. That’s not to say the park doesn’t require intention and effort – it does. But the terrain gentler and the obstacles fewer.
Writing “Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen” (2008) was a stroll through a park, metaphorically speaking, for first-time fiction writer Susan Gregg Gilmore. Centered on young Catherine Grace Cline, who longs to escape her small hometown of Ringgold, Georgia, the novel blends humor, drama and wit with lively, poignant storytelling rooted in Gilmore’s Southern heritage – an approach that would become a hallmark of her writing.
Upon publication through Penguin Random House, praise for “Dairy Queen” was widespread. Goodreads lauded Gilmore as a “talented new literary voice,” while novelist Jill McCorkle hailed the tale as “storytelling at its best” and NPR critic Alan Cheese celebrated it as a “standout coming-of-age novel.”
“Dairy Queen” not only introduced Gilmore’s voice to readers but also expanded her name to “New York Times bestselling author Susan Gregg Gilmore.” With her debut, she’d achieved what many writers pursue for years but never grasp. More acclaim soon followed as she published two additional novels, and for a time her path seemed to stretch to the horizon.
Then came the day Gilmore found herself standing before an 89-year-old gravestone marking the final resting place of an adolescent boy’s amputated leg.
Graveyard sparks a story
Gilmore stumbled across the leg in 2012 while teaching teens at the Appalachian Young Writers Workshop in Harrogate – home of Lincoln Memorial University. She’d led the group to the cemetery, ironically, to spark ideas that had nothing to do with dead bodies.
“The kids often wanted to write about zombies and things like that, but for one week I wanted them to focus on human characters,” Gilmore recalls. “So I’d take them to the cemetery and tell them to use the land around them and the design of a tombstone to develop a character.”
While wandering the granite-stubbled grounds, Gilmore came across a peculiar headstone bearing the barest of inscriptions: “Leonard Bush’s leg, 1923.” There was no comforting addendum – no “Gone but not forgotten” or “Asleep in Jesus” – only the stark, unembellished record of a single appendage.
The teens shrugged it off, but the tombstone lodged in Gilmore’s mind, stirring her curiosity. Though Leonard’s leg had rested in the earth for nearly a century, she was able to learn through the university that he’d lost it at the age of 12.
Beyond that, Gilmore uncovered nothing about the boy or the loss of his leg. Yet those few letters and numbers carved in stone were enough to plant the seed of her next novel. What she didn’t realize was that she’d turned off the gentle path she’d been strolling and begun a descent into a wilderness thick with obstacles.
Habits shape creative flow
Writers are creatures of habit. Some thrive in chaos, their minds sparking as baristas call out names in bustling coffee shops or in the stolen moments between other tasks. Others need precision: uninterrupted time, a quiet space and the right tools to slip into the proper frame of mind. For them, the words won’t come unless everything is perfectly in place.
By her own admission, Gilmore requires the latter, and fortune smiled on her with the perfect conditions for writing “Dairy Queen.” With her children in elementary school and only occasional interruptions to freelance for the Los Angeles Times, she had both the time to write and the mental space she needed. Day after day, she immersed herself in the fictional world she was creating and poured her thoughts into her word processor.
“I wrote for at least two hours each morning. Often that stretched into six, right up until it was time to pick up the girls. I was very disciplined,” Gilmore remembers.
Indeed, Gilmore was so singularly focused on writing “Dairy Queen” that she says it became her world.
“I thought about those characters constantly – so much so that when I called my children to dinner, I sometimes found myself calling Catherine Grace to the table, too.”
Fast forward to 2012, and life looked very different for Gilmore. The leisurely mornings that once seemed divinely cleared for writing were gone. In their place was real estate – a career she’d taken up to help pay for her daughters’ education. She poured herself into the work with the same fervor she gave to writing, and in 2015 earned Crye-Leike’s Rookie of the Year award for becoming a multi-million-dollar seller from the outset.
Gilmore welcomed her success, but there was a price to pay. Instead of writing, she filled her mornings with showings, looking at comps and tending to anxious clients; instead of a clear head, thoughts of contracts, negotiations and relationship-building push aside reflections on character motivation, plot and perspective.
During this time, Gilmore also took on the care of her aging mother. Coupled with her business responsibilities, this all but buried her new book beside Leonard’s leg in the recesses of her mind.
“I’m not good at doing anything part-time, so I was trying to be both a full-time Realtor and a full-time novelist,” Gilmore explains. “But as I layered in elder care and grandchildren, my thoughts grew scattered and my routine unpredictable. Finding not just the time but also the quiet headspace to write became a struggle.”
In time, Gilmore’s frustration gave way to panic as she realized she hadn’t touched her manuscript in weeks. Her reaction, however, only pulled her further into the wilderness.
Four drafts, one struggle
Writing-guide author K.M. Weiland says the mark of a true writer is the ability to tuck one’s ego into a back pocket. By Gilmore’s own account of what followed, she could have been Weiland’s star pupil – regardless of her bestseller credentials.
“When I did write, I was racing to the finish line, churning out one terrible draft after another. They weren’t fleshed out, interesting or layered,” she admits.
Gilmore didn’t write one draft that fell short of her standards – she wrote four. And none of them were revisions; each was a complete rewrite from Page 1.
As Gilmore felt herself floundering, she watched the successes of other authors – people she admired and respected. Rather than inspiring her, their accomplishments pushed her into isolation.
“I stepped away from social media. Seeing what everyone was doing was stressful, so I shut it all off. I carried this measuring stick – and I felt like I was failing.”
One of Gilmore’s lowest points came at what she believed would be a high. After pouring buckets of blood and sweat into her fourth novel, she was convinced she’d finally wrangled a version worthy of publication. Certain the struggle was near the end, she flew to New York to meet her agent and celebrate over mimosas.
But when her agent walked into the restaurant, she didn’t even wait to sit down before shaking her head no.
Gilmore says she’s not one to cry. But in the wake of that devastating shake of the head, she couldn’t stop herself from adding tears to the buckets of blood and sweat she’d already poured into the book.
“I cried in the restaurant. I cried in my car. I thought, ‘I have nothing left to give.’”
Thankfully, she was wrong.
Roots of a writer
Born in Nashville in 1961, Gilmore was the youngest of four children. After her family moved to Washington, D.C., she attended National Cathedral School before studying history at the University of Virginia, where she reported for The Cavalier Daily. She worked briefly as a secretary at the Smithsonian Institution, then earned a master’s in American studies from the University of Texas at Austin.
Gilmore’s career began as a staff writer at the Chattanooga News Free Press and later took her to Pasadena, California, where she freelanced for The Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Parenting and Garden & Gun.
She made the leap from journalist to novelist after years of encouragement from friends who insisted she had a book in her. She resisted at first – she’d never written fiction – until one friend finally said, “You keep searching, and you keep receiving the same answer. Why can’t you accept that?”
“Hearing it framed that way changed everything,” Gilmore recalls. “That’s when I began writing my first novel.”
A defining feature of Gilmore’s work was her refusal to abandon a good idea, even when the writing resisted her. That persistence kept her story about Leonard’s leg alive long after it seemed she might never reach the end.
“I could not let Leonard go,” she says. “I loved this kid, and it was an interesting story. There was something about him that felt unique to me, and I was drawn to him.”
Once she’d dried her tears, Gilmore rededicated herself to finishing the book. But the work went beyond her computer and became an effort to restore her sense of self as a writer. As part of that process, she enrolled in a yearlong novel-writing workshop with a trusted instructor.
“I started from square one, as if I had no idea what I was doing,” she says. “Out of that came the quiet and the peace I needed to create the book.”
Help also came from Gilmore’s agent, a patient soul who gave her the gift of time and encouraged her to set the novel aside and revisit some old friends.
“She had me write some on my ‘Dairy Queen’ sequel to give me fresh perspective – which I did do, and then I quickly came back to Leonard.”
That support made a difference. Writing a different story and joining a workshop table filled with supremely talented writers challenged Gilmore to raise her own craft.
“It’s like playing tennis with someone who’s a lot better than you are,” she says. “It was an intense workshop, but it got me there.”
Real estate remained Gilmore’s full-time work, but over time she shifted her writing from mornings to evenings – after her clients were cared for and her mind felt unburdened.
“Learning a new rhythm took time, but I eventually became most productive at the end of the day, when real estate had quieted down,” she says. “I need that tranquility. If I can’t settle my brain, I have a hard time being creative.”
A novel at last
“The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush” landed on bookstore shelves Aug. 26, 13 years after Gilmore’s graveyard discovery.
Published by Blair, a small press in Durham, North Carolina, the novel opens with 12-year-old Leonard, who’s lost a leg, asking to bury it in the family cemetery. After his parents agree, townspeople see how gracefully he embraces his loss and marvel at his hopeful spirit. One by one, they begin bringing him tokens of their own guilt, sorrow, shame and grief, asking him to lay them to rest in the same way he buried his leg.
At its heart, the novel is about the search for peace and absolution. The town’s intertwined stories – of a preacher unsettled by Leonard’s role, of families grappling with loss and of Leonard’s friend Azalea – show how individuals confront their burdens and seek release.
The trademarks of Gilmore’s style are on full display; as in her other novels, she dances fluidly between humor and drama. This time, though, the humor often tilts darker than in her past work.
“There’s a lot about his friend Azalea, whose mother is the town prostitute. Azalea is often put in dangerous situations because of the men who enter her home,” Gilmore explains. “So the story takes on more serious themes and delves into loss and grief, but there’s also this wonderful vein of hopefulness and humor.”
Once again, praise is following Gilmore’s work. Fellow authors have described the novel as “brilliant and moving” (Lee Smith), “deepest dark ... and oh-so-human” (Bill Roorbach) and “heartfelt and harrowing” (Jill McCorkle).
“The Southern spirit climbs mountains, then tumbles down, then climbs once more, all one leg,” added Roorbach, the bestselling author of “Life Among Giants.”
“The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush” is available in hardcover “wherever you love to buy a book,” Gilmore says. “Go to your local indie store and give them your support. In Chattanooga, that would be The Book & Cover, and in Ringgold, it’s Book & Barrel.”
While struggling to write the novel, Gilmore found a measure of peace herself. It was as if she had handed her creation, Leonard, the loss of her old routine, and he buried it as he had his leg. In letting go, she discovered a renewed sense of self as a writer and established a new rhythm that allowed her creativity to flow freely again.
Real estate remains a full-time endeavor for Gilmore. Her mornings are still filled with showings, reviewing comps and tending to anxious clients. But in the evenings, reflections on character motivation, plot and perspective now push aside thoughts of contracts, negotiations and relationship-building.
And as she returns to the world of Catherine Grace Cline, she finds herself emerging from the wilderness and once again strolling through a park, where the terrain is gentler and the obstacles fewer.