‘Whistling’ sees 1963 South through sassy 9-year-old’s eyes

7 p.m. July 16. With Karen White. Bookmiser. 4651 Sandy Plains Road, Roswell. $5 admission or free with purchase of Crandall’s new book. Reservations required. 770-993-1555, www.bookmiser.net.

7 p.m. July 17. Eagle Eye Book Shop. 2076 N. Decatur Road, Decatur. 404-486-0307, www.eagleeyebooks.com.

Crandall also will appear at the AJC Decatur Book Festival (Aug. 30-Sept. 1). Appearance times and dates will be announced later at www.decaturbookfestival.com.

Would-be novelists are always being advised to “write what you know.”

It's basically a bunch of hooey where Susan Crandall's concerned.

For starters, there's nothing would-be about her: She's already got nine published novels under her belt, with a 10th, the much-talked-about-in-advance "Whistling Past the Graveyard," hot off the presses. (It came out July 2.)

And the Indiana resident has absolutely nothing in common with Starla Claudelle, the 9-year-old “Whistling” narrator whose spur-of-the-moment decision to run away from her unhappy small-town Mississippi home in 1963 sets several much larger and impactful stories in motion.

Well, almost nothing in common.

The book’s title, which Starla first summons up late one night when she’s fleeing from a particularly dangerous situation, refers to the need to be brave in the face of something scary or unexpected. Similarly, Crandall found herself having to stiffen her own spine three years ago when she couldn’t shake an idea for a book completely different from anything she’d ever attempted before.

"This little girl kept bouncing around in my head with her sassy attitude and comments," Crandall, a 57-year-old mother of two grown children, said by phone on the morning of her 39th wedding anniversary. She'd garnered a loyal following and even one prestigious RITA award from the Romance Writers of America for her self-described "women's fiction — usually with a romantic element to them and some mystery or suspense."

Not everyone was convinced she could or should mess with that recipe for success, especially if it meant trying to write in the voice of a youngster who was experiencing firsthand the personal and social upheavals of the civil rights-era South.

"(Faced) with all those career questions, I had to do a little whistling myself," admitted Crandall, who knew her track record of having published at least one book a year since 2003 would be at risk. "But this felt like the book I was supposed to write. I can't explain it any better than that."

She might not have to, if early excitement surrounding the book is any indication (Crandall has four Georgia appearances scheduled next week, including three in metro Atlanta). “Whistling” begins with Starla chafing under the watchful eye of “Mamie,” the strict Southern grandmother with whom she lives while her father (Mamie’s son) works on an oil rig in the Gulf and her mother, Lulu, is off becoming a famous singer in Nashville. At least that’s what Starla believes is going on with Lulu, of whom Mamie barely tolerates any mention.

After getting into even more trouble than usual one day, Starla lights off for Nashville, where she’s sure Lulu will welcome her with open arms. Along the way, she joins forces with Eula, a kindhearted woman with her own set of problems, not the least of them being the fact that she’s an African-American in the Deep South at the time of Bull Connor, segregation and the March on Washington.

Inevitably, “Whistling Past the Graveyard” has already elicited comparisons to “The Help” and “To Kill a Mockingbird.” But Crandall, who reread numerous novels featuring child narrators in preparation for writing her own, reaches much further back than the 1960s South to draw a literary parallel.

“I think Starla ended up being much more Huck Finn than (‘Mockingbird’s’) Scout Finch,” said Crandall, who strove hard to filter the plot, which includes references to lunch counter sit-ins and JFK’s assassination, through a 9-year-old’s mind. “Huck Finn’s adventure was told immediately afterwards, from a 14-year-old’s perspective, while Scout Finch was looking back as an adult and able to incorporate her understanding of events.

“I wanted it to remain Starla’s story, including a 9-year-old’s misunderstandings and embellishments,” Crandall concluded. “It was her and Eula’s adventure, and how they found their place in the world then.”