Red Clay, Southern Accents, and Outsiders

Hearing Jeffrey Dale Lofton Read

Last night, at Revalation Vineyards, I had the privilege of hearing Jeffrey Dale Lofton read from his debut novel, Red Clay Suzie, for the second time. The first time I’d heard him read, I was brought to tears by his words. (This is, truly, one of the best novels I’ve read in years.) And last night, I was struck by his ability to perform, a skill well-hewn in years of theater.

Jeffrey is rather soft-spoken; his personality is gentle, lovely, really. I’d love to be able to take a long train ride and talk, read, and sit in silence with him. He’s the kind of person who is completely present in a conversation, and he asks lovely questions.

But when he reads, he becomes his character, which is a strange paradox of art because the character is him, in some form, a childhood version of the little boy who grew up gay and with a physical difference in rural Georgia.

He takes on an accent that is much deeper than his usual slight, citified twang, and there’s more volume as well as timbre to his voice. It’s mesmerizing. And when you couple that with the beautiful, vulnerable, honest words from his pages, you get a magical event, a way to spend an evening that is almost incomparable.

It was his reading that made me realize that I wanted to review books - particularly when I have the honor of hearing the author’s read their own work - so that more people know about them.

So today, I’m highly, highly recommending Red Clay Suzie, and if you buy the book, Jeffrey is donating his proceeds to The Trevor Project and the Born This Way Foundation, which means you get a gift and other people do too.

You can get Jeffreys’s book here, through my affiliate link, at Bookshop. And if you have a chance to hear him read, do it as another gift to yourself.