Scraps of Grace, A Novel received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.
Following find an interview with author Jon F. Harmon.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
Scraps of Grace, A Novel – published November 2024
What’s the book’s first line?
“The pity he imagines in her downcast eyes as she waits to be paid irritates him.” The inherent ambiguity here—I didn’t want you wondering for long: Is she a prostitute?—is quickly addressed in the next line: “Tyler fights the urge to explain to the babysitter that his wife’s death hasn’t crippled him, that he is still whole.”
This simple two-line opening sets up so much of the story. Tyler is a young, single father devastated by the sudden death of his wife of just five years, pretending to somehow be keeping it all together. The sixteen-year-old babysitter will be a defining character as well, although at this point the reader may be wondering why she is introduced so prominently, in the book’s very first line.
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
It’s the story of a rather ordinary young man’s struggles in the wake of loss and trauma, with his corporate career in shambles, raising a toddler alone. And the help he receives from several unlikely characters. The babysitter, who turns out to be a high school basketball phenom, along with a gruff World War II veteran, a hippie nun and a beguilingly brainy and beautiful graduate student will each help him rediscover his sense of identity, and set him on a path of spiritual discovery.
Scraps of Grace is an often irreverent story about an unintentional spiritual journey that ultimately abides in reverence. That sounds contradictory, and I do want to believe that it breaks some new ground in contemporary Christian literature. I hope readers find it at times funny and wry, and also moving and insightful. That’s a heavy burden to put on a debut novel, but I’ve been working on it a long time.
How long?
Well, 33 years. In 1991, I began a thesis project to complete my Master’s program in creative writing at the University of Detroit-Mercy. I was taking classes at night, while I was in the early stages of what would become a demanding career at Ford Motor Company. The first 150 or so pages date back to that thesis, though of course, I have rewritten these words many, many times since. I intended to finish the novel back then, but the same month as my graduation, my third son was born. The rightful priorities of life intervened. My wife and I would raise four sons, and I have never regretted shelving the novel to spend time with my family and to progress in a satisfying career.
Did that long gestation period affect the story?
Yes, of course. Set in Michigan in 1990-91 with President George H. W. Bush in the White House and a war brewing in Iraq, Memories Best Forgotten (original title) was highly immersive, with a flood of real-life background details surrounding the fictional characters. I was developing a narrative technique I called “the hyper now” — a narrative told in the present tense with a wide-angled view of contemporaneous events as they unfold around the main characters.
As years passed by, I had choices to make as the author. I could continue to develop the story in its original setting, being mindful not to allow subsequent real events to influence the narration or to allow anachronistic details to creep into the story. That’s what I tried to do, at first.
But when I really picked up work on the novel in 2003 – there was another Bush in the White House and another war raging in Iraq. I tried to take advantage of history seemingly repeating itself by telling the story in two alternating timelines, throwing the reader off from time to time with ambiguous references to President Bush or the Iraq war. Promising idea, but it just didn’t work. I scrapped the project, mostly, returning to it every so often when I had a burst of inspiration or a writing itch to scratch.
During the COVID isolation, I picked up the project in earnest, writing a large chunk set in 2021. But the book was now a magnum opus of more than 800 pages. Who would read such a long, meandering book by an unknown first-time novelist? I decided to return to the 1990-91 core section and leave everything else out. Much of the rest, rewritten many times, will see the light of day next year as the sequel to Scraps of Grace.
What’s the main reason someone should read this book?
Readers who enjoy literary fiction will appreciate the quality of writing, if I can be a bit immodest here. The review in the Indie Reader praises Scraps of Grace for its “fluid prose style punctuated with moments of clarity and beauty.” That captures very well what I was aiming for.
Readers drawn to contemporary Christian literature will find the book spiritually satisfying, with some unexpected humorous rough edges along the way.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character?
Tyler has trouble focusing. His short attention span affects his relationships with everyone he encounters. And it shapes the book’s flow as the omniscient narrator is most often in Tyler’s head. As Tyler’s mind flits from one thought to another, the narration is often jumpy. Tyler’s trouble focusing also shapes the unfolding of the book’s theme—his spiritual attention deficit disorder keeps him from any meaningful connection with the one who could help him most in his hour of need.
In this way, Tyler is entirely relatable. Anyone who has struggled to stay focused with God during even a short prayer can attest to the fact that we all suffer from spiritual ADD. Or ADHD if you must, but most people didn’t call it that in 1990.