"Tornado Weather"

Deborah E. Kennedy is a native of Fort Wayne, Indiana and a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has worked as both a reporter and editor, and also holds a Master's in Fiction Writing and English Literature from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Kennedy applied the Page 69 Test to Tornado Weather, her debut novel, and reported the following:

From page 69:

When Shannon was a girl, she used to love to visit her grandmother's stately home on Peach Street, to get lost in the upstairs bedroom while Granny made a pie or ironed Grandpa's shirts. Granny always left her alone to wander the house, to go from room to room, picking up knick knacks and making up stories. Back then she didn't like to share Granny or her house with anyone if she could help it, not even Rhae Anne. The only time she remembered playing with another person at Granny's was the summer Camila lived with them and her memory of those days was sketchy. Mostly she recalled walking with the beautiful girl through the back hall where the linoleum – yellow roses on a silver background – echoed their steps back at them. And their breathy version of “Follow the Yellow Brick Road.” Together they traced the chains of flowers from doorway to doorway, their feet kicking up dust motes in the half-light of the hall like disturbed spirits. At one point, Camila whispered, “I want to stay here forever.”

“Forever,” Shannon whispered back.

On page 69 of Tornado Weather, Shannon Washburn – grieving the loss of her mother and trapped in a toxic relationship and dead-end job – is visiting with her grandmother following a race-fueled dust-up at the laundromat where she works. Shannon drops in on her grandmother as often as she can to keep the old woman company and do light housework, but it's been too long since her last visit and Shannon's conscience smotes her. While helping Granny to some angel food cake, she is reminded of a different time, when visiting her grandmother was less of a burden and more of a joy. Readers who start on this page would probably think they were in for a rather sad ride, but one page later they would encounter Johnny Carson, Granny's battery-powered parrot shrieking “Land Ho!” and they'd have a better idea of the general tone of the book. Heartfelt, I'd say, but always on the lookout for the absurdity of human existence.

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My Book, The Movie: Tornado Weather.

--Marshal Zeringue