Children’s Fiction Novel by Allen Johnson Jr
THE DEAD HOUSE | Children’s Fiction
Coming April 1, 2014 | 224 Pages, Hardcover
Rad Fox, a boy who lives with his widowed mother on the Blackwater River, and Dr. Jordan Mason, a family friend who is visiting, discover an evil presence at the old Granger House. The twins, Will and Johnny come to visit Linc and Johnny gets deathly ill. In this multi-layered mystery, Linc, once again, shows the value of his skills in Blackwater Swamp.
I live on Mercer Island, Washington, near Seattle, with my wife Jill, my filmmaker son Ben, who is now a weekend visitor, and three dogs; Sunshine, Piccolo, and Chloe. My daughter April, who is currently making a documentary film, lives nearby in Seattle, and my first son, Colby, a filmmaker, lives in New Orleans. (I have to wonder if a gene for filmmaking runs in my family!) At the age of seventy-seven, I now pursue my two passions: writing and jazz guitar.
I was born and raised outside of Birmingham, Alabama. You can take a Southerner out of the South, but you can’t take the South out of a Southerner!
As a boy I had the good fortune of growing up with the space and freedom to be outside, have adventures, explore, and get into trouble. A boy’s purpose in life is to play, and the tantalizing possibility of getting into trouble added spice to that purpose. I was also blessed with a rich heritage of storytelling from the members of my wonderful, extended Southern family. I share some of my family stories in the Blackwater Novels. My boyhood in the South and my college years at the University of Alabama also gave me first-hand experience of the good people coming together with love to help each other and to confront racial hatred.
I am grateful to my Southern past for giving me the rich experiences to draw on in writing the Blackwater Novels. I consider these books to be parables on how to live. This may explain why some things work out better in the novels than they do in real life.
— Allen Johnson Jr.
Kelley McMorris is an illustrator living near Chico, California. A native of California, she received her BA in Japanese from San Jose State University after studying abroad in Nagoya, Japan. After graduation she decided to pursue her lifelong love of drawing, and received her MFA in Illustration from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Kelley’s award-winning work has been featured in Applied Arts, ImagineFX, Chaos Magazine, Leading Edge magazine and the SCBWI bulletin. She also collaborates with her husband on their independent game studio, Siege Games. In her spare time she enjoys cooking, knitting, playing video games and sleeping. Kelley is represented by Shannon Associates. Her work can be viewed at kmcmorris.com
In my nearly 50-year career as a writer of novels and non-fiction books, stage plays, television and movie scripts, and hundreds of magazine travel and adventure articles, children’s fiction is just about the only genre of scribbling I have never had a go at. Reading Allen Johnson Jr.’s The Dead House makes me wish I had.
The novel is a true page-turner, with an expertly crafted story and vivid characters. But its real magic resides in its pitch-perfect evocation of boyhood, and sense of place and period. Johnson makes his story and characters come to life on the page, and transports you into a gripping tale set so compellingly into its time and place that it is as much a wrench to return to your own as it is for the tale to end. And that, my friends, is the very definition of an exceptionally good novel, for any age reader. Enjoy it! — Charles Gaines, author and screenwriter