When Day Is Done by Julia Nunnally Duncan

[Rob Neufeld]

When Day Is Done by Julia Nunnally Duncan (March Street Pr trade paper, 2009).


A woman reflects on her life in Milton, N.C., a town based on Marion.

"Esther passed Oak Grove Cemetery every weekday as she drove to work and passed it again on the drive home," the novel begins.

She spots two maintenance workers. When the "second man looked at her and raised his eyebrows as if just noticing her, she looked away from him to the road in front of her and gripped the steering wheel...Take care of the graves, she thought, and lost his image. But later that evening she looked for him when she passed again at eight o'clock."

Esther talks with her mother about him. The subject drifts--to other low-wage jobs, such as the coton mill job that has given her father brown lung. Driving to teach a class at the college, she thinks about current changes in her hometown; about her past relationships in the town; and about Sandy, her brother, buried in the cemetery

The cemetery caretaker lives in a trailer. She goes to see him there. This is the passage that follows.

She wouldn't dare tell her daddy where she was going. Anyone who lived in a trailer was suspect. It wasn't that he was against the poor--he himself grew up poor in the Depression, was a self-proclaimed yellow dog Democrat, and revered FDR because he strived to help the working man--her daddy just thought people could do better. One day they had driven by the trailer park [in their neighborhood] and a young man sat in an aluminum chair in his yard, holding a pistol.

"See that? her daddy said. "He's looking for somebody to shoot. This didn't used to be that kind of neighborhood. You watch him when you go out, Esther."

"He just target practices against a bank, Daddy. I've seen him doing that. He's okay. I taught him at the college last year."

"Is that why he grins at you that way?" her mother asked from the back seat. "I wouldn't want a student of mine giving me that kind of look. It's rude."

"He's just friendly," she said. "And I think he works for the Police Department now. We ought to be glad he's on the street."

"Him and his pack of dogs," he daddy said.

• Have you read the novel? What struck you?
• If you haven't read the novel, where do you think it's going, or where would you like it to go?

[Robert Bixby]

It's always a treat to work with Julia Nunnally Duncan, someone who knows the nuts and bolts of writing and has a flowing well of ideas--and someone not averse to listening to other people's ideas. Thanks for bringing this to me and I hope that your many readers have enjoyed the opportunity.

[Julia Nunnally Duncan]

Thanks, Mr. Bixby. The pleasure of working with you and March Street Press has been mine!

[Robert Bixby]

here is a sample chapter.