Robert Gwaltney’s “The Cicada Tree” Is Where Images Sing As Secrets and Dangers Emerge
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In this episode 298, we visit with Robert Gwaltney author of “The Cicada Tree,” set in the South at the time the cicadas emerge, what one reviewer calls a “Southern Gothic with a vengeance.”
It’s the summer of 1956, when a brood of cicadas descends upon Providence Georgia, a natural event with supernatural repercussions, unhinging the life of Analeise Newell, an eleven-year-old piano prodigy. Amidst this emergence, dark obsessions are stirred, uncanny gifts provoked, and secrets unearthed.
Robert Goolrick, #1 New York Times bestselling author, says this about the novel: “Following in the magnificent footsteps of Carson McCullers and Harper Lee, Robert Gwaltney creates a wonderful snapshot of the friendship that forms between Analeise and Etta Mae, two eleven-year-old girls in ‘50’s small town Georgia… This is a book to love and remember, and every book club in America would be wise to snap it up.”
Connect With the Author
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About the Author:
Raised alongside three feral, younger brothers in the rash-inducing, subtropical climate of Cairo, Georgia, Robert Gwaltney is a lifelong resident of the South—a circumstance that has left an indelible mark upon his voice as a writer.
Robert Gwaltney, a writer of southern fiction, is a graduate of Florida State University. He resides in Atlanta Georgia with his partner, where he is an active member of the Atlanta literary community.
By day, he serves as Vice President of Easter Seals North Georgia, Inc., a non-profit organization that strengthens children and their families during the most critical times in their development. Through his non-profit work, he is a champion for early childhood literacy.
Robert also serves as Fiction Editor for The Blue Mountain Review. In all the hours between, he writes. The Cicada Tree is his debut novel.
More Praise for the book:
“The gothic beauty of a relentless Georgia summer is brought to life through Gwaltney’s deliberate details and exquisite imagery, while all the while evil lurks beneath the surface; from where or what the reader does not know but is as convinced by Gwaltney’s expert storytelling as he is.”
–Zoe Fishman, bestselling author of Invisible Air and Georgia Author of the Year 2020
“This is Southern Gothic with a vengeance—a dark blast of family secrets, strained loyalties, and bitter betrayals. We follow young Analeise Newell with fear and hope, dreading what may happen to her even as we turn the pages. Robert Gwaltney is a writer to watch.”
–Christopher Swann, author of A Fire In The Night
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