Scars of Sand and Soil follows a deeply scarred soldier who escapes a brutal Confederate prison camp and struggles to build a life away from the violence and loss he has suffered. What first inspired Gabriel Cooper’s story?

I had a nagging question about what would happen if someone were released from prison to fight a war. What kind of experience would that be? I realized that it depended on the person and so I started to build a character and he had to be organic with a backstory. I was looking for something less common, a story that is not always covered in Civil War or Reconstructionist stories. Gabriel as an ex-convict was the starting point and then there had to be the emotions that would go with someone who was in prison and was desperate to get out. Yet beneath those immediate emotions there was a core of someone who had once been good and I wanted to explore how Gabriel could once again find himself.

Gabriel is both sympathetic and deeply unsettling. How did you approach creating such a morally complicated protagonist? 

I treated Gabriel as a whole person and did not focus on any one particular dimension of his personality. Gabriel had hopes and dreams and fears; depending on what he was feeling and where he was in life, it propelled his actions. Gabriel is intelligent and feels deeply, therefore the results of his assassinations, his lies, his secrets are not lost on him and as he gains life experience and wisdom, his conscience catches up with him. While he might seem a psychopath in the beginning, this is his trauma on display. As he gets a foothold in a life where he experiences love and success (albeit a dubious success given his profession) he begins to question the value of some of his choices. 

The story explores questions of class, race, gender, and social change. Which of those themes felt most urgent while you were writing?

Gender is what really d rove the story for much of the writing. Simone plays a pivotal role in female empowerment in this novel. As a woman she is presented with very few options for living the life she would want, but this is not evident to her until she meets Lucinda who tells her in so many words that while she is not a black woman nor a slave, she is still downtrodden. Then Simone is faced with the unthinkable; the inability to have a baby. She now must create a life of purpose outside the proscribed social mores of the time. She succeeds at this, but then is once again presented with the opportunity to take up with an old romantic flame. Her choice in this matter and then her choice in dealing with the discovery of Gabriel’s deceit is a tribute to a woman making choices for herself rather than what would be expected of her from the dominant gender of society.

What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available? 

I have a second novel completed, but it is in need of a re-write. Then, it depends on getting it to a publisher, which as you know, is no easy feat!

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