"The Blameless"

Ryan Kenedy is a professor of English at Moorpark College. His short fiction has appeared in North American Review, The Greensboro Review, Sou’wester, and San Joaquin Review.

Kenedy applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The Blameless, and reported the following:

My Q&A with the author:

From page 69:

“I don’t have to say it.”

“Say it.”

“You already know.”

“I want to hear it, Vivian.” He stared at that mouth of hers. “I want to hear you say it.”

Down along the river, where there was a clearing of sand, they put out chairs and umbrellas and a pair of long tables covered in cloth from end to end. On the tables were bags of potato chips and numerous homemade pies and large bowls of Jell-O and fruit salad. Mothers fixed plates for their children while their husbands stood in circles telling stories and talking politics. Boys and girls chased each other in and out of the reeds, scrambled up the embankment and raced down again, and babies waddled in the sand and cried.

L.T. had volunteered to barbecue. He flipped meat patties and turned hotdogs, stacking the cooked meat on foiled trays for the ladies to put them out on the tables. He heard peals of laughter. The young mothers sat together with their babies between their arms and knees. And the men sat in lawn chairs or stood with their hands in their pockets. By now L.T. knew many of their names but he preferred to busy himself at the grill. He wiped his fingers on a borrowed apron and looked for Vivian, but it was Philip who approached him.

“You are a blessing, Travis. I mean it.”

Philip touched him on the shoulder.

“God is working in you,” he said. “I can see that.”

“Is he?”

“You have a gift for serving others. This is how we serve the Lord, with our hands and feet.”

“I’m just trying to stay out of the way,” L.T. said. “Are you hungry?”

“No, I’m not. Have you seen Vivian?”

“I haven’t.”

“She’ll be down soon then. We’re baptizing Virginia today.”

“I didn’t know.”

“She’s seven now. She understands things well enough. We have to make sure they’re ready.”

Page 69 doesn't work well as an introduction to the novel. The scene is part of an extended flashback in which the main character, Travis Lee Hilliard, a convicted murderer, recalls his tense relationship with a well-meaning pastor (Philip Bigelow) who rescued him off the streets, and the pastor's discontented wife, Vivian, who Travis aims to seduce. Page 69 only hints at these conflicts. The dialogue at the top of the page, for example, suggests Travis's attraction to Vivian, "that mouth of hers," although readers unfamiliar with the novel wouldn't know the speaker is Travis. They might intuit this fact, however, when the narrator says Travis was looking "for Vivian, but it was Philip who approached him." Readers will also sense Travis's reluctance to engage Philip in dialogue. Travis is an outsider who harbors a secret, and he has no interest in God, Philip, or befriending other members of the church. Although the scene on page 69 is necessary and revealing, the novel's central conflict is not between Travis and Philip, or Travis and Vivian, but between Travis and Virginia, their daughter, who in the present timeframe is an adult in her mid-thirties. The backstory helps readers understand how Travis ended up in prison, but the novel is primarily concerned with Travis's life now that he's out on parole and Virginia's determination to confront him face to face.

Visit Ryan Kenedy's website.

Q&A with Ryan Kenedy.

--Marshal Zeringue