Questions and Answers

Backseats and Bleachers: A High School Love Story
A Novel by Alexus Rhone

1. Please describe your new book Backseats & Bleachers.

Every young woman who chooses to love men will eventually make a bad choice.  Backseats and Bleachers is a cautionary tale about loving strong, but wrong.
Backseats and Bleachers:  A High School Love Story continues the journey of Trek Baden (first introduced in Premature Pleasures) who is 16-years-old and able to officially date.  However, her two love interests should be nicknamed "bad" and "worst".  The bad choice is Jon, a religious nympho that goes to her school.  The worst choice is Ferris, a 19-year-old hottie from her dad's neighborhood who is just getting out of the county jail as the story begins.

2. Is this the same Ferris from Secret Shame?

It’s the same Ferris.  Remember in Secret Shame he thought Trek was really cute, but too young for him.  Now that she’s 16 and blossoming quite nicely, he tosses his name in the hat for her affection.

3.What’s the significance of the title Backseats and Bleachers?

Let me fish your mind out of the gutter (LOL).  The title continues my alliteration series.  “Bleachers” is in reference to Trek as a member of the Willowridge High School drill team called the Wings who perform at football games.  “Backseats” refers to a place where you keep your trash and/or your treasure.  I remember one day when I had a full schedule, I tossed everything I needed in the backseat – change of clothes, my laptop, my bible, etc.  But when I was done with my energy drink, I tossed the empty can in the backseat, too.  In the novel, you have that same play on what’s treasured and on what’s treated as trash.  When Stilts’ lady friend is riding in the front seat, as soon as he sees Trek walking, he pulls over and tells Trek to get in the front, and turns to the other girl and says, “climb yo’ ass in the back.”  And the girl obeys.  She’s treated as trash.  But when Trek and Ferris get stranded in Galveston and Ferris attacks her, Stilts comes to pick them up.  Remorseful, Ferris rides in the front seat and Trek cries on the ride home in the back.  Ferris is obviously sorry for what he’s done, and as he’s being dropped off, he tells Stilts to drive carefully because, “you’ve got my whole life riding in the backseat with you.”  He treasures Trek.  

4.  Why does Trek have to choose between boys who represent a bad choice and a worse choice?  Why can’t she choose a knight-in-shining-armor?

I initially wrote Backseats and Bleachers with Jon as the knight-in-shining-armor.  My earlier reviewers hated him, but loved Ferris the bad boy.  Men often say women prefer a man who dogs them over one who treats them like a queen.  I always disagree vehemently whenever I hear that, but I also never have an answer for why women tolerate men who CLEARLY mean them very little good.  I cut young women some slack because they are still learning and growing.  Trek witnessed Ferris try to fight the police and watched him punch his ex-girlfriend in the eye.  But she also loved his tender affections towards her and his tattooing her name permanently on his chest.  The older she gets, hopefully she’ll see his violent tendencies not as something provoked by bad people (i.e., the police and his ex), but something that is simply part of him.  And anybody is subject to get smacked around when he’s angry, including Trek.  Unfortunately, (as she learns) she’s not exempt.   

5. I love your storytelling voice. 

I try to stay original and tell stories in a way that differs from writers.  My voice is consistently lauded in reviews and critiques.

6. In Premature Pleasures we witness Trek’s mom being attacked by her dad.  Statistics show that more often than not, when a woman loves a man who beats her, she may pass that on to her children, that is, the notion that hitting or being hit is okay.  In Backseats and Bleachers, Trek gets attacked.

The first rule of writing is to write what you know.  I don't know private schools or 2-parent families or designer clothes or wealth and Ivy League schools.

I do know public schools with teachers who cared about me.  I know life with one parent who couldn't give me a credit card at 16, but did get me a library card at 9.  I know life in a black neighborhood where the majority owned their homes and supported the cheerleading and drill team fundraisers when we had car washes or stood on street corners with buckets to collect money.  I got a degree in Journalism/Public Relations from the publicly funded state college; it's not sexy, but I still got my paper.

I also know Jesus Christ as redeemer.  I know the struggles of living your faith.  I know flakiness and hypocrisy.  I know a loving God.  And none of that appeals to certain powers that be.  In fact, I was told by one agent that if I "fired Jesus" and focused on affluent black characters, she could sell my manuscripts easily (she validated my strong, authentic writing voice).  In this bling-bling, "Cribs", "It's-Good- To-Be-Will-and-Jada Pinkett Smith" culture that's consumed by money, it's hard to sell "the gate-keepers" on storylines featuring a discount debutante.

But my young fans gobble up my novels like candy.  So I press forward, asking, seeking, and knocking believing I will receive, find and walk through opened doors.  I simply write what I know and what I like to read.