Today we’re excited to chat with Kat Spears, author
of The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker!
Below you’ll find more about Kat,
her book, plus a
giveaway!
YABC: What gave you the inspiration to write this book?
KAT SPEARS: I never really know how to answer this question when people ask because I never just have a single great idea for a book and then sit down to write it. Sometimes I’ll have a dream that I mull over for a few days or other times I’ll see a person on the subway who intrigues me. I usually spend many months thinking about a story and letting it evolve in my head before I commit anything to paper. After I wrote my first novel SWAY, my publisher compared it to Cyrano de Bergerac in the cover synopsis. The connection between the two stories hadn’t occurred to me before that because I was writing a story about the friendship between two boys, not a romance. As for THE BOY WHO KILLED GRANT PARKER, I once described the plot to someone and that person said, “Oh, that sounds like the plot line to THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE.” The comparison between the old western movie and my book definitely gave me the final title (which had a different working title) but the similarities between the two stories was not intentional from the outset.
YABC: Who is your favorite character in the book?
KS: I like Roger, because he’s honest and unrefined. I like Delilah, because she doesn’t take any crap from anybody. I like Chief Perry, because it’s funny the way he thinks every teenager is a dope‐smoking delinquent. I like the town of Ashland as a character unto itself. I included characters from my own family who embody that southern, small town world view. As a teenager, I felt more like a foreigner visiting my extended family, who had all been born and raised in small southern towns, than I ever did as an American living abroad.
As for my protagonist, it was my intention that readers would be able to understand why Luke behaves the way that he does, maybe even empathize with him. But he was never meant to be likable. He’s not a hero.
YABC: Which came first, the title or the novel?
KS: The story definitely came first. It lived in my head for about six or eight months and I had about 20 pages of it on paper just so I would remember how I first envisioned the character’s voice in my head. The notes I made initially were saved in my laptop under a working title. When I finally sat down to start writing the whole thing that was when I renamed it. In the case of this particular book, once someone compared the story to the old John Wayne western, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, that was when I really latched onto the idea of mimicking that story and used the title.
YABC: Thinking way back to the beginning, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned as a writer from then to now?
KS: My answer to that question seems to change with every book I write. I struggle now with approaching writing as a job when, for most of my life, writing was my personal, private experience. Before I began publishing, the stories I developed were just for me. Writing was a process through which I could reduce stress, forget about the outside world, and resolve conflicts within my own brain. Other people have yoga or therapy—I’ve always had writing.
And now, because I work on deadline and put my stories out to be judged by other people, it’s difficult for me to find solace in the process. And believe me, I definitely need the solace. I work full‐time managing a busy bar and have three kids and regularly participate in conferences and school and library visits. If anyone needs a creative outlet to relieve stress and anxiety, it’s me.
I’m working on my fourth book now and I just had to tell myself to write the book that I want to write, to not think about who will read it and what they will think of it. I would write whether I got paid to do it or not. I wrote for 25 years without ever even showing my writing to anyone. When I write now I try to pretend that is still the case.
YABC: What do you like most about the cover of the book?
KS: I love the cover of GRANT PARKER. All of my covers have been designed by Griffin Teen with the human figures cast as silhouettes. I like that because the narrators of my stories are always somewhat unreliable and they demonstrate that no matter what we think we know, we can never really know anyone completely. People are always a mystery to each other as we carry hidden within us our past actions that make us feel embarrassment or shame. The silhouette theme just reinforces that idea of people as enigmatiC.
YABC: What’s up next for you?
KS: I’m working on a fourth book now. It’s called 87 DAYS and it’s very different from anything else I’ve ever written. The past few years have been a struggle—adjusting to a lot of change in my life while having to maintain consistency for my kids. I’ve been walking along the cliff between change and the status quo for a couple of years now. Just waiting to see if I’ve worked up enough nerve to finally jump.
YABC: Which was the most difficult or emotional scene to narrate?
KS: Any time my main character acts like a complete tool or has to do something that annoys me, it makes that particular scene hard to write. And, since Luke makes a lot of really poor choices (to put it mildly), I struggled with many of those scenes. Whenever he failed to stand up for the people who had shown him real friendship or failed to go against the crowd just because he wanted to remain popular, it annoyed me so much. But I suppose I had the same weaknesses that Luke did when I was his age. We like to believe we were all well‐ behaved, rational, and intelligent beings right out of the womb but, of course, perception is everything.
YABC: Which part of the writing process do you enjoy more: Drafting or revising?
KS: Writing a first draft is definitely the hardest part for me. I love revising. I can revise one of my manuscripts 1,000 times and never get bored with it, always finding something I can change to improve it. One thing I do like about publishing is that at a certain point you just have to let a project go and move on to something else.
Meet The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker!
Luke Grayson’s life might as well be over when he’s sent to live with his Baptist pastor father in rural Tennessee after getting kicked out of his DC private school. His soulless stepmother is none too pleased to have him, and Luke’s bad boy status has done him no favors with his new principal or the local police chief. He’s also an easy target for Grant Parker, the local golden boy with a violent streak, who has the community of Ashland under his thumb and Luke directly in his crosshairs.
But things go topsy-turvy when, after a freak accident, Luke replaces Grant at the top of the social pyramid. This fish out of water has suddenly gone from social outcast to hero in a matter of twenty-four hours. For the students who have lived in fear of Grant all their lives, this is a welcome change. But Luke’s newfound fame comes with a price. Nobody knows the truth about what really happened to Grant Parker except for Luke, and the longer he keeps living the lie, the more like Grant he becomes.
Kat Spears returns with this explosive coming of age story that explores not only the labels put on us by society, but the labels we put on ourselves, and the work it takes to find out who we really are underneath all the lies.
Meet Kat Spears!
KAT SPEARS has worked as a bartender, museum director, housekeeper, park ranger, business manager, and painter (not the artistic kind). She holds an M.A. in anthropology, which has helped to advance her bartending career. She lives in Richmond, Virginia with her three freeloading kids. She is also the author of Sway and Breakaway.
The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker
By: Kat Spears
Release Date: September 13, 2016
*GIVEAWAY DETAILS*
The boy who killed grant parker sounds like a great story ♡ I would enjoy reading this book. I think the cover is awesome! Thank you
The cover reminds me of those crime scene shows where they have the chalk outline of a dead victim….totally creepy! The summary is interesting. I live in rural TN, and I’d like to see what happened to Grant.
I think many kids appreciate a story with a step-parent who is less than stellar; too many kids can relate. I also don’t think there are many stories told from the perspective of the pastor’s son or daughter, which can be a struggle for those young people. Glad you wrote this book!
I love the cover because it is just an outline of a boy–it matches the synopsis which promises a character who no longer really knows who he is and can’t define himself any longer truthfully.