Lisa Cresswell on Friendship

Today I'm welcoming Lisa Cresswell to my blog to talk about her book, Hush Puppy, and I'm just going to hand things right over to her. :)

 

 

Hi Everyone!  I’m so glad Rachel invited me to visit with you on her blog as part of my book release blog tour.  I’ve just published a young adult contemporary novel titled Hush Puppy.  I’ve done lots of author interviews and talked plenty about myself. You can read more about me on my blog, if you’d like.  Today I want to switch gears a little. I’d like to talk with you about the themes in the book and what I was striving for when I wrote it.  I’m a huge fan of themes in writing. Just as some background, here’s the book blurb for Hush Puppy~

 

 

Hush Puppy is the story of Corrine Lamb, a seventeen year old black girl, and Jamie Armstrong, a poor white boy, living in a backwater North Carolina town. Intelligent Corrine, abandoned by her mother, and artsy Jamie, forced to play football by a redneck father, both dream of leaving their podunk town and never looking back.

Their shared love of literature and a dream of a better life brings them together and a romance blossoms between them in a secret place of their own in the steamy North Carolina woods. When Jamie is involved in the accidental death of a white girl, he's terrified of his abusive father. Corrine takes the blame to protect Jaime, with dire consequences for herself and her dreams of the future. Her life in danger, Corrine's left wondering if Jamie ever cared about her at all.

 

Hush Puppy could succinctly be described as a coming of age story, but I like to think it's also about growing into one's own sense of self-esteem, something many of us don't truly achieve until later in life.  In addition to that, the book is about a funny little thing called friendship.  It's one of my very favorite themes and it crops up in my writing again and again, no matter what I write.

Friendship is a hard thing to get your metaphorical arms around. If you were to define friendship, how would you describe it? An affection between two people? Is it trust or an understanding and acceptance of another's personality, their flaws and foibles?  Is a friend a confidant, a person you can trust with your secrets?

 I myself have very definite opinions about what makes a friendship and I wanted to explore that in Hush Puppy.  What happens when the trust of a friendship is betrayed? Or when that friendship gets tangled up with feelings of love or dependence?

To me, a friend is someone you can be totally yourself with without fear of rejection or ridicule.  Even then, there's a constant push-pull between the two of boundaries, of affection and closeness. Some friends are more distant than others and we're constantly trying to gauge where we stand with them. The friends we're closest to are those that know our inner most fears, those that support us, and encourage us to grow, maybe even against our will.

What do you think makes a friendship? Have you ever had a friend betray your trust? What happened? Those are some of the questions explored in Hush Puppy. I hope you’ll get a chance to read it and let me know what you think. Peace~

 

You can find Lisa's book on Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.