For the past five years we’ve dedicated this space to featuring five debut authors who have lived a good deal of life before publishing their first books. From the start our aim was to highlight not one path—not some mythical road, paved with youthful intentions, upon which so many “new and emerging” authors travel—but rather the countless individual routes, some considerably longer and circuitous than others, that lead to the publication of a debut book. After all, there isn’t one way to be a writer, and “new” and “emerging” are not synonymous with “young.” In this, our fifth annual 5 Over 50, we meet five authors—ranging in age, from early fifties to early seventies, and published by presses large and small, from Cleveland’s independent Belt Publishing to New York City’s Big Five imprints—who followed their passion, dedicated themselves to their craft, and pursued with dogged perseverance a dream undiminished by career building, child rearing, and the joys, sorrows, responsibilities, and challenges of lives well lived. As one of this year’s debut authors, A. H. Kim, whose dream to publish a book revealed itself relatively recently—only eight years ago—puts it: “To those of you who have a dream I say, ‘Go for it.’”

Valentine (Harper, March 2020) by Elizabeth Wetmore
The Last Children of Mill Creek (Belt Publishing, April 2020) by Vivian Gibson
A Good Family (Graydon House, July 2020) by A. H. Kim
We Were Lucky With the Rain (Four Way Books, September 2020) by Susan Buttenwieser
2nd Chance (New Issues Poetry & Prose, October 2020) by Daniel Becker

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Elizabeth Wetmore, author of Valentine, published in March by Harper. (Credit: Carrie Allen)

Mary Rose

I used to believe a person could teach herself to be merciful if she tried hard enough to walk in somebody else’s shoes, if she was willing to do the hard work of imagining the heart and mind of a thief, say, or a murderer, or a man who drove a fourteen-year-old girl out into the oil patch and spent the night raping her. I tried to imagine how it might have been for Dale Strickland:

The sun was already crawling toward high sky when he woke up, dick sore and dying of thirst, his jaw locked in a familiar amphetamine clench. His mouth tasted like he had been sucking on the nozzle of a gas can, and there was a bruise the size of a fist on his left thigh, maybe from hours pressed against the gearshift. Hard to say, but he knew one thing for sure. He felt like shit. Like somebody had beaten both sides of his head with a boot. There was blood on his face and shirt and boot. He pressed his fingers against his eyes and the corners of his mouth. Turned his hands over and over looking for cuts, then pressed them against the sides of his head. Maybe he unzipped and examined himself. There was some blood, but he couldn’t find any obvious wounds. Maybe he unfolded himself from the front seat of his pickup truck and stood outside for a minute, letting the harmless winter sun warm his skin. Maybe he marveled at the day’s unseasonable warmth, its unusual stillness, just as I had earlier that morning when I stepped onto my front porch and turned my face to the sun and watched a half dozen turkey buzzards gather in large, slow circles. The work of mercy means seeing him rooting around in the bed of his truck for a jug of water and then standing out there in the oil field, turning 360 degrees, slow as he could manage it, while he tried to account for his last fourteen hours. Maybe he didn’t even remember the girl until he saw her sneakers tumbled against the truck’s tire, or her jacket lying in a heap next to the drilling platform, a rabbit skin that fell just below her waist, her name written on the inside label in blue pen. G. Ramírez. I want him to think, What have I done? I want him to remember. It might have taken him a little longer to understand that he had to find her, to make sure she was okay, or maybe to make sure they were clear about what had happened out there. Maybe he sat on the tailgate, drinking musty water from his canteen and wishing he could remember the details of her face. He scuffed a boot against the ground and tried to bring the previous night into focus, looking again at the girl’s shoes and jacket then lifting his gaze to the oil derricks, the ranch road and railroad tracks, the scarce Sunday traffic on the interstate and behind that, if you looked real hard, a farmhouse. My house. Maybe he thought the house looked too far to walk to. But you never know. These local girls were tough as nails, and one who was mad? Hell, she might be able to walk barefoot through hell’s fires, if she made up her mind to do it. He pushed himself off the tailgate and squinted into the jug. There was just enough water to clean up a little. He bent down in front of the driver’s mirror and ran his fingers through his hair, made a plan. He would take a piss, if he could manage it, and then drive over to that farmhouse and have a little look-see. Maybe he’d get lucky and the place would be abandoned, and he’d find his new girlfriend sitting out there on a rotting front porch, thirsty as a peach tree in August and happy as hell to see him again. Maybe, but mercy is hard in a place like this. I wished him dead before I ever saw his face.

From the book Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore. Copyright © 2020 by Elizabeth Wetmore. Reprinted courtesy of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.  

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Vivian Gibson, author of The Last Children of Mill Creek, published in April by Belt Publishing. (Credit: Iris Schmidt)

We lived in 800 square feet: three rooms on the first floor of my grandmother’s house, filled mostly with beds. My grandmother, my father’s mother, lived in the rooms above us. There were few words wasted between my mother and her mother-in-law even though we all lived in the same house for years. They were skilled at avoiding each other. It was easy—Mama just had to be in her bedroom at 5:00 a.m. when Grandmama came downstairs to leave for work, and in the kitchen at 5:00 p.m when Grandmama trudged up the stairs after work. I never heard a harsh word or a raised voice between them, but I never saw a smile either. We children were the go-betweens and messengers. Grandmama was referred to by my mother as Miss Hodges—tell Miss Hodges this, take Miss Hodges that. Daddy was the fulcrum on which both women rested—central to their coexistence and function in our household. My grandmother did my father’s laundry weekly and made his lunch every day. I’m sure my mother gladly acquiesced; she had plenty of washing and cooking to do already.

My grandmother joined many of the women on Bernard Street who left home before daylight to catch as many as threestreetcars that transported them to manicured communities just west of the city limits. They arrived early to homes where they cooked and served scrambled eggs for breakfast and readied white children for school. The rest of their day was spent cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry until boarding streetcars in the evening that returned them home just in time to go to bed. Grandmama said that there were sundown laws that mandated people of color to be off the streets in the county by sunset. If she had to work late, her “white folks” (that’s how she referred to her employers) would drive her to the Wellston Loop to catch an eastbound streetcar back into the city.

My grandmother was in bed for the night by 7:30, which was our time to be quiet. A slammed front door, a burst of laughter, or the rhythmic thumps of Sam Cooke singing “Another Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody” on the radio would elicit familiar rapping on her bedroom floor. There was a broomstick leaning against the wall—an arm’s length from her bed—just for the purpose of pounding a signal for silence. Sometimes, out of frustration, she would shuffle in her well-worn slippers to the top of the stairs and call down to my mother, in a commanding tone made no less threatening by her shaky, weary voice: “Frances, make those children be quiet.” It usually worked for the rest of the evening.

Halfway up the stairs that led to Grandmama’s rooms was my favorite retreat from the constant hum made by the ten people inhabiting the three small rooms below. The worn wooden risers and treads of the steps created a perfect work desk for cutting out Betsy McCall paper dolls. The eagerly anticipated monthly issue of McCall’s magazine provided me with hours of cutting out brightly colored paper dresses, coats, and hats that I carefully crimped onto Betsy’s posed body. More hours were spent drawing new outfits of my own design. Using the smooth white cardboard that formed Daddy’s freshly laundered Sunday shirts into a starched folded rectangle, I cut and crafted small easels that held my paper dolls erect for miniature fashion shows.

That space that divided Grandmama’s quiet from our constant hum held another appeal for me—it was an opportunity to eavesdrop on my grandmother’s cloistered existence just feet away. There was always a low murmur from the brown molded-plastic Zenith radio that sat on the crowded table just inside her bedroom door. The black rotary telephone that took up most of the remaining space on the small table rarely rang in the evening. But when it did, I leaned in and pressed the side of my face against the upright wooden balusters and positioned an ear to hear what was said. Sometimes I could tell it was one of the sisters from the church, usually Mother Vine. Mother Vine was a feisty and friendly old lady who always smiled and stroked my face on Sunday mornings when we arrived at the church. She tilted my chin upward and looked me in my eyes in a way that my grandmother never did. She would always ask, “How’s yo’ mama?” as if to distract me while she magically presented a peppermint candy from her purse. I couldn’t see Grandmama’s face, but I could hear a slight smile in her voice after she said, “Hey, Vine.” Their phone conversations never lasted long and ended with a wry, knowing chuckle followed by, “You get some rest now, bye.”

Other times when the phone rang, I would hear a voice and words that I hardly recognized. Her side of the phone conversation started with the usual questioning “Hello?” Then changed to an unfamiliar subservient “Yes, ma’am.” After a pause her voice changed again to a soothing maternal tone that I only heard during these exchanges, “I know,” she’d say reassuringly. “You be a good boy now. Go to bed, and I’ll be there when you wake up in the morning.”

Excerpted from Vivian Gibson’s The Last Children of Mill Creek. Copyright © 2020 by Vivian Gibson. Appears with permission of Belt Publishing.  

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A. H. Kim, author of A Good Family, published in July 2020 by Graydon House. (Credit: John Wooley)

Welcome to Alderson, West Virginia, reads the sign at the town’s border, Voted Best Fourth of July Celebration. Sam drives the car along the riverbank and across a stone bridge, past a patchy green field with a lonely brown mare and along a gently curving driveway marked by a government-issued sign that announces you’re entering a federal prison camp.

It’s almost 5:00 p.m., and the Alderson Prison parking lot is empty. We shouldn’t have stopped for lunch on the road. The letter from the Bureau of Prisons made it clear Beth had to self-surrender during business hours today or risk additional punishment. There’s a black cast-iron call box next to the single-arm gate, and Sam lifts the receiver.

“Do you remember the code to dial?” Sam asks. Beth gives a mild shrug. I reach into my purse—a well-worn leather satchel found among my mom’s things after she died—and begin to sort through a thick sheaf of papers when a white sedan approaches from the opposite direction, exiting the prison through another single-arm gate.

“Is she self-surrendering?” a Tipper Gore look-alike asks. She points to me sitting in the back seat. Sam and Beth don’t say anything.

“No, I’m not the one. She is.” I gesture toward Beth, feeling like a narc.

“Okay,” Tipper replies, “dial 313 and tell them the name of the inmate. Then pull over into the parking lot, and they’ll be out to get you.” With that, she drives away.

Sam does as he’s told. We wait in the parking lot for what feels like a lifetime before a white van drives up. The three of us get out of the car.

“You the one self-surrendering?” the guard asks, looking at me.

“No,” I say quickly. My voice is louder this time.

“I’m the one,” Beth says. “I’m the one self-surrendering.” The guard ogles Beth up and down.

“You’ll have to leave that behind,” the guard says. She points to Beth’s right hand. Beth is still wearing the ring Sam got her for their fifth anniversary—everyone in the family calls it her Bling Ring—comprised of five rows of pavé diamonds in a platinum setting. Beth never wears a ring on her left hand. “I like to keep people guessing,” she always says.

“My lawyer said I could wear my wedding band,” Beth protests.

I stifle a groan. If you had read the Alderson inmate orientation handbook that I emailed you, you would know about the Bureau of Prisons’s jewelry policy—“Inmates may have a plain wedding band and an appropriate religious medallion and chain without stones.”

The Bling Ring is anything but plain.

“Here, take this,” I say. I unclasp the thin chain around my neck, pull the simple gold ring off and hand it to Beth.

“Oh no, I couldn’t,” Beth says. “That belonged to your mother.”

“It’s okay, she’d have wanted you to have it,” I say. I’m lying. My mother died years before Sam met Beth, but she wouldn’t have liked her. Beth is too American, too materialistic and too domineering for my traditional Korean mother—not to mention too felonious.

“It doesn’t fit,” Beth says. She passes the simple band back to me. “Anyway, I’m afraid I might lose it.” I return the ring to the gold chain, and Beth passes me her Bling Ring, which I slip onto my finger. The weight of the diamonds feels surprisingly nice.

“Okay, that’s enough. You’re already late. Time to say good-bye,” the guard barks. We stand there awkwardly, not sure what to do next.

“I don’t know what to say, Hannah,” Beth murmurs. She takes a step forward and hugs me hard. I can feel Beth’s heart beating against my chest. “Thank you for coming all this way. I’m glad Sam won’t have to drive all the way home by himself. Be sure to take good care of the girls.”

Beth releases me and turns to Sam. She holds his hands and leans her head into his broad shoulder. Sam buries his face in her thick hair.

“I’m so sorry, Beth,” he whispers.

“Stop it,” Beth says.

“It should be me.”

“What’s done is done.”

Sam lifts his head, and Beth kisses him lightly on the lips.

“Just don’t screw up again,” Beth says. Then she pushes him away.

An excerpt from A Good Family © 2020 by A. H. Kim. Appears with permission of Graydon House. All rights reserved.  

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Susan Buttenwieser, author of We Were Lucky With the Rain, published in September by Four Way Books. (Credit: Keith Summa) 

We Were Lucky With the Rain

Lacey can’t resist spying on her parents when they fight. Which happens whenever her mother has disappeared for a few hours or, occasionally, the entire evening. Lacey lies flat on the wooden floor of their upstairs hallway, peering through the banister at her parents, who are yelling at each other in the living room below. 

Her father wants to know where her mother has been and why she never picked up Lacey from her piano lesson this afternoon, or her younger sister, Eileen, after school. 

“I told you this morning that I was going to this Mom lunch thing at Hoolihan’s. So I was late, okay?” Lacey’s mother throws her purse onto the floor. Only her legs are visible underneath a red dress, as she roams around the living room. She bumps into the coffee table, left ankle buckling.  

“You weren’t late, you didn’t show up. You didn’t answer your phone. We had no idea where you were. And now you’re a complete mess.” Her father’s voice goes up an octave. “You could have killed someone, you know.”

Her mother starts laughing. “Jesus, relax. I took a cab.”

“Then where is the car, goddamn it?” 

If Lacey tilts her head a certain way, she can see her father’s slippers pacing back and forth. She strokes her fraying rope bracelet that she got at her school’s Fall Festival. Her fingers always work their way to its soft underside whenever she’s waiting for her turn to bat for her softball team or perform in a piano recital.

“The car is fine, all right?” her mother says. “I left it in the parking lot at that Star Market by Hoolihan’s.”

 “It’s not fine. It won’t be fine. You can’t leave the car there overnight. It’s going to get towed!” Her father’s slippers stop moving. Then he stomps his left foot on the floor and throws a sofa cushion out into the hallway. A table lamp crashes to the floor and her mother shouts at him to Stop it, just stop it.  

Lacey can’t understand how Eileen always sleeps through their parents’ arguments, which often involve things being broken. A few weeks ago, her mother hurled a bottle of red wine against the front door. Another time it was plates. She’s also thrown glasses, shoes, and once a dining room chair. But her father always cleans it all up, and in the morning, there is never a trace of the mess, not even one thing out of place anywhere.

Every Friday, Lacey’s mother picks her up after her piano lesson at 4:30. But this afternoon, 4:30 came and went, then it was 5:00. Lacey waited for her mother through the next lesson, and the one after that. Her mother never came. 

Lacey sat out in the hallway on a bench, her back pressed up against the wall. The lessons were in the living room and Lacey could hear the metronome and Mrs. Szabo counting, “one and two and one and two,” fumbling scales going up and down the piano. The hallway’s striped yellow wallpaper was covered with faded photographs. It smelled of old furniture and rugs, mold and dust, like Lacey’s basement. She pulled out her notebook to work on a sketch of the teacher she’d started during math class. He wore suits with purple basketball sneakers and was known for throwing chalk at anyone not listening. 

“Still no mother?” Mrs. Szabo said when all the lessons were finished for the day and then asked if Lacey wanted to call her. Her mother’s phone went straight to voice mail, so Lacey returned to the hallway bench while her teacher started dinner. The black baby grand was shoved in a corner of the living room. During the lessons, Mrs. Szabo always sat next to Lacey on a folding chair, making sure her hands didn’t slouch onto the keys, that she sat up straight, back like a board, shoulders down. Lacey hadn’t practiced very much during the week -- one piece she didn’t work on at all -- and Mrs. Szabo was annoyed with her. “You’re not trying. Put some porridge into your playing,” she’d said, wiping her nose on the ball of Kleenex that was always tucked inside her sweater. There was going to be a recital in three weeks and Lacey wasn’t close to being ready. Usually she received stars on all her pieces, but this week she got none.   

By the time Mr. Szabo got home, the hallway had become a mixture of smells, sautéing garlic, grilled chicken, and damp basement. Lacey could hear them discussing her in the kitchen, sometimes slipping into another language. “They’re survivors, honey,” Lacey’s mother would say in a hushed voice whenever Eileen wanted to know why they “talked so funny.” 

“Mister will give you a ride home,” Mrs. Szabo came out to the hallway. “You must practice an extra half hour each day this week.”  

As he drove, Mr. Szabo leaned way over the steering wheel and waited a long time at intersections to make sure nothing was coming. Cars honked at every traffic light, and Lacey hoped they wouldn’t see anyone from school. “Missus tells me you are a good piano player,” he said when they finally arrived at her house.

Lacey let herself in through the kitchen door and went through the dark house turning on all the lights downstairs. She sat in the window seat of their breakfast nook and pulled out her notebook and finished the sketch of her math teacher. The stove clock flipped over numbers and an occasional car drove by. 

After a while, her father’s Jeep Cherokee turned into the driveway, Neil Young blasting out of the open windows. When Lacey’s father came through the door, he was singing to himself, but stopped abruptly at the sight of Lacey alone and the absence of dinner.  

“Where’s Mom?” He pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. 

“Dunno.”

“Didn’t you have your piano lesson today?” 

Lacey nodded.  

“Did your mother pick you up?”  

Lacey shook her head. He stood in the middle of the kitchen, running his hands through his starting-to-gray curly hair, which could never seem to find a comfortable place on his head. “What about Eileen?” he asked. “She’s not home either?” 

“Nope.” Lacey was starving, but her father would be distracted trying to find Eileen and her mother. Dinner wasn’t going to happen as usual when Lacey’s mother disappeared. 

An excerpt from “We Were Lucky With the Rain” from We Were Lucky With the Rain © 2020 by Susan Buttenwieser. Appears with permission of Four Way Books. All rights reserved.