Our latest Spotlight Sunday author is Brenda Prescott! Her novel Home Front Lines, available now, follows the lives of several strong women who are seemingly pitted against each other during the Cuban Missile Crisis but have more in common than anyone could have realized. Take a look at our interview with this incredible author below as we learn more about her and her novel.
Could you please tell us a little about your backstory?
Through the many years, I worked in fundraising and information technology at universities and nonprofits (with a side tour through music management), I always tried to incorporate a writing focus in my jobs. I also spent those years filling the pages of cheap notebooks and taking the occasional writing workshop until I finally committed to writing seriously and earning an MFA from the Stonecoast writing program.
My head belongs to the East Coast, having lived most of my adult life in the Boston area. Meanwhile, I’m a Western woman in my heart and soul, having spent my high school years in Eastern Washington and my earlier years in West Texas. I’ve worked most of my life in academic settings, while my family has a long history of military service, with records stretching back to the Civil War.
What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?
When I was about six or so, my father was among the leaders of the black community that put together the first celebration of Negro History Week in El Paso, the forerunner of what is now Black History Month. The keynote speaker was Barbara Jordan, the legendary political figure who at the time had just been elected as the first African American woman to serve as a state senator in Texas. She recounted how people stopped by her office to stare at her, needing to see this unthinkable situation with their own eyes. She said she would reply that there she was, “in living color.”
That phrase, “in living color,” was the catchphrase of a television industry that was leaving behind a black-and-white past and moving into the future of broadcasting in color. She was using it as a humorous way to diffuse the awkwardness and perhaps the implied threat of people telling a black woman that she didn’t belong in the halls of power where no black women had been before. She was also proclaiming that the future was going to be in color, so they had best get used to it. Even at that young age, I admired the wit with which she accomplished so much with three short words.
Please tell us what “Home Front Lines” is about.
“Home Front Lines” is set during the Cuban Missile Crisis before it becomes public. There are two interwoven storylines. One follows Betty Ann Johnson and her friends, all of whom are military spouses living on an Air Force base outside of Washington, DC. The other follows the Sisters Montero—Lola, Chita, and Rosita—who live in Matanzas, Cuba.
Betty Ann realizes that supposedly routine military exercises are actually preparations for a live war, while Lola’s life is threatened when she accidentally witnesses one of the Russian missile installations. Both women and their circles make plans to evacuate their children from their potential hotspots. Neither set informs their husbands of their plans and actions.
This is a story of strong, determined women. Women that you know, only they are adorned with different cultural robes and live elsewhere and in a different time. You may see them as being on opposite sides of a life-threatening conflict, but their identical impulses to keep their children safe arise from the same heart.
What inspired the story?
This story was inspired by the uncertain times following 9/11 and the increased threat to ordinary U.S. citizens. I wanted to think about how we might learn how to go forward in our daily lives by looking back at a similar time in our history for which we know the outcomes. I’m also deeply committed to creating narratives that portray the agency and fullness of black lives.
What do you hope readers take away from the novel?
I hope readers feel as though they have met real people and care about what happens to them. I also hope readers reflect on how the different storylines resonate against one another. In addition, I hope that readers recognize something of themselves if they are or were military dependents, or that they have a better understanding of the military dependent life if they are not.
What is something that you’ve learned about yourself through writing?
I‘ve learned how much information I take in about the world. I know things I didn’t know I knew until I pull them out in service of building a character or moving a plot along.
Are you working on any other projects at this time?
Yes! I have several ideas brewing, but the one that I’m concentrating on next has to do with historical fiction looking at black cowboys and/or Buffalo Soldiers in the post-Civil War era.
What authors or novels would you recommend that we add to our reading list?
Overstory by Richard Powers. Black Bottom Saints by Alice Randall.
Where can our readers find you on social media?
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brendasparksprescott
Instagram: bsparksprescott
Twitter: @bsprescott