Marion stood at her kitchen island arranging cheese cubes while her twenty-pound honey-glazed ham turned to carbon at 425F degrees. She'd been standing there for eighteen minutes now, watching it through the oven door like television. Like meditation. Like prayer.

The first review was lovely. Detailed, thoughtful, generous. Very reassuring. Made me feel good, real good. All tingly inside.

Then I hit the second one.

Or should I say it hit me?

Meet Catherine Tucker, author of Tall Cotton—a blistering tale of race, justice, and survival in 1970 Mississippi. A boy fighting for his mother. A lawyer facing his own demons. A town steeped in secrets. Our conversation goes deep into what drives a writer to walk that road.

Winter nights hold secrets differently. The cold makes people honest, or desperate, or both. Loneliness sharpens. Old grudges thaw. And every memory somebody tried to bury claws its way to the surface in time to wish them a merry Christmas.

Every year around this time, some poor bird somewhere makes the news for escaping its fate. Usually it’s a farm upstate, sometimes a backyard coop in Queens. There’s always a photo — the turkey darting across a road, feathers flying, looking both ridiculous and determined. And for a moment, we all root for it. The great escapee. Can’t say I blame him. Some years, we all want to escape Thanksgiving.

Twenty-five years ago, I published a book called Harlem Redux, about a 1920s New York civil rights attorney who returns from the dead to investigate his sister’s supposed suicide—and finds a viper’s den of family secrets, betrayal, and long-buried lies. The story follows his search for truth through the wreckage of love and loyalty.

Harlem Redux didn’t arrive in this world the way books usually do. It didn’t stroll in with an agent and a tidy contract and a marketing plan. No, that book crept in sideways, same as trouble, same as a blessing you don’t recognize till years later.

When Every Day Is Halloween

You know what they don’t tell you about Halloween? It’s amateur night for the real ghouls.

While the rest of the world paints their faces and pretends for a few hours, there are folks who never take off their masks. You’ve met them. They’re serving you apple pie with smiles that don’t reach their eyes. Signing contracts with that have done deeds dark enough to shame the devil. Walking through suburban doors each evening to kiss families who don’t know they’re living with strangers.

For some folks, Halloween’s not a holiday. It’s a lifestyle. A habit. The year-round business of keeping up appearances while something cold and hollow walks around wearing a pretty face.