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WORK TITLE: Treeborne
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.calebjohnsonauthor.com/
CITY: Philadelphia
STATE: PA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Partner’s name Irina.
EDUCATION:University of Alabama, B.A.; University of Wyoming, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Teacher and author. Worked variously as a butcher, janitor, and journalist. Jentel Writing Resident.
AWARDS:Walter E. Dakin fellow.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Prior to launching his writing career, Caleb Johnson attended the University of Wyoming and University of Alabama. It was at the University of Wyoming that he completed his MFA program. His work in academia earned him a fellowship under the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, as well as a residency position. In addition to writing, Johnson also leads classes in his field of expertise. Beforehand, he held jobs in the meat, sanitation, and journalism industries.
Treeborne serves as Johnson’s official literary debut. The novel focuses on a titular family known as the Treebornes, who reside in Alabama. The novel is presented from the point of view of Janie Treeborne. For years, Janie has lived a secluded life in her hometown of Elberta. One day, she is approached by an interviewer who is interested in her family’s history. The story unfolds as she recalls the legacy of the Treebornes, going back to her grandfather’s era and weaving into the present day. In the process, Janie reveals that Elberta itself has become deeply intertwined with the Treeborne family.
The novel first travels back to the year 1929. At the time, Elberta’s main dam, Hernando de Soto, was undergoing construction. Hugh Treeborne participated in the dam’s construction. Hugh hadn’t quite planned to become involved with creating the dam, but wound up joining an organization called “Authority,” which was in charge of overseeing the dam’s progress. Afterward, Hugh spends his time using mechanical parts and bits of earth to construct art that hearkens back to the time before the dam existed. At this point in the story, Janie also introduces another character, Lee Malone, a black man who tended to the peach grove that still rests near Janie’s home. Janie’s grandmother, Maybelle (also known as “MawMaw”), is revealed to have developed romantic feelings for Lee. The two are suspected to have carried on an affair, only for everything to quickly turn awry when Maybelle is murdered and dumped in the forest.
The second generation of Janie’s family enters the story in the year 1958. This part of the story focuses on Janie’s aunt and father, Tammy and Ren, and their exploits. Tammy is narrated as being especially driven, thanks to her dreams to make it big as a Hollywood actor. Her story intertwines with Janie’s generation, when Janie learns her family’s property is being threatened, and one of the main perpetrators is her Aunt Tammy. Determined to save the orchard, Janie bands together with friends to abduct Tammy. They believe that by doing this, the plans to demolish the properly will ultimately be called off. For years, no one can trace Tammy’s whereabouts. Yet, one day, she suddenly resurfaces, and with her reemergence comes even further questions.
In the present day, Janie imparts that even her current lifestyle is being threatened. The dam her grandfather helped to build has aged and become unstable. Now it is on the verge of collapsing, and taking everything else with it. In the process of sharing the legacy and timeline of the Treebornes, Janie also provides further history on the rest of the town and its residents, painting a picture of life as it was and revealing several hidden truths. A Publishers Weekly contributor remarked: “Sentence by loamy sentence, this gifted author digs up corpses and upends trees to create a place laden with magic and memory.” In Booklist, Bridget Thoreson wrote: “Treeborne is an enthralling story about what binds people together and breaks them apart.” A writer for Kirkus Reviews called the book “a lyrical effusion deeply rooted in place and steeped in quirky characters.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, April 15, 2018, Bridget Thoreson, review of Treeborne, p. 32.
Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2018, review of Treeborne.
Publishers Weekly, April 23, 2018, review of Treeborne, p. 62.
ONLINE
Caleb Johnson website, https://www.calebjohnsonauthor.com (July 5, 2018), author profile.
creative writing@the university of wyoming, https://ibrokemythesis.com/ (October 1, 2017), “Interview with Caleb Johnson ’13,” author interview.
Caleb Johnson grew up in the rural community of Arley, Alabama. He graduated from The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and earned an MFA from the University of Wyoming. Johnson's debut novel, Treeborne, will be published by Picador in June 2018. Currently, he lives with his partner, Irina, and their dog, Hugo, in Philadelphia, where he teaches while working on his next novel.
creative writing @ the university of wyoming
Interview with Caleb Johnson ’13
Posted on October 1, 2017 by wyo.mfa under Uncategorized
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be publishing a series of interviews with recent grads from the MFA program at various stages of the publishing process. We talk about the MFA process, writing after graduation and navigating the world of publishing. Today, we hear from Caleb Johnson ’13, whose novel Treeborne will be published by Picador in June 2018.
What led you to choose Wyoming for your MFA?
In short, the people and the place.
I wanted to learn Brad Watson and, after getting to know Alyson Hagy, I realized how lucky I’d be to learn from her too. The same can be said for Rattawut Lapcharoensap and Joy Williams. Everybody who taught at UW during my time there. I’d never lived outside Alabama either, so attending UW was a chance to try it.
During recruiting weekend, I remember how everybody made me feel so welcome. There was a student reading at Second Story / Night Heron, then everybody walked down to Front Street. A few of us went on to the Buckhorn and spent a late night drinking and talking and dancing upstairs at the parlor.
The financial support also influenced my decision. I don’t think we always talk honestly enough about the economic realities of being a writer. It’s irresponsible for academic institutions to expect folks to go into debt to earn an MFA in creative writing. I already had student loans from my undergraduate years and refused to take on more.
What surprised you most about your time in Wyoming, for better or worse?
I was surprised how much Laramie felt like home. I guess I shouldn’t have been. Wyoming, like the part of Alabama I come from, is rural. Though the geography differs, you get similar people and values in both places.
I understand that everybody’s experience is different, but my time living in Wyoming was all positive. I think that’s in part because I’d done some research about the place and I understood a little about where I was committing to spending two years of my life. I gave Laramie a chance on its terms, rather than reacting to my expectations. I’m glad I did. Moving to Wyoming was the best decision I ever made.
What was the spark for your current novel? Did you work on it during the program? At what point did you decide this was the main project you wanted to pursue?
When I decided to come to UW, I knew I wanted to write a novel during my time there. I just didn’t have a good idea for one. I’d recently stalled on a first attempt.
There was no question the novel I wrote would be set in the South. Somewhere, I read that historians think Hernando De Soto introduced the peach to the region during his conquest of the region in the 1500s. This fascinated me. Most folks outside of Alabama don’t know it, but we grow some of the best, juiciest peaches you’ll ever eat. I was raised up in history and myth too, so I got in mind that I’d write a historical novel about the Spanish conquistador pillaging his way through my homeland. The thing I soon figured out was that I didn’t enjoy doing the research required to pull off such a project.
I can’t say exactly where I wandered from there, except forward in time in regards to when the story was set, but I kept writing and writing, and eventually I discovered two characters — a grandmomma and a young girl. These two women stuck and became the protagonists of the novel that’s now called Treeborne.
How have you balanced writing and work post-MFA?
It hasn’t been easy, but I’m pretty unyielding when it comes to what takes away from my writing time. After earning my MFA, I decided to take whatever work would give me the most time and headspace to finish the novel. I worked some less than fulfilling jobs and dealt with loads of self-doubt. That’s a compromise many of us make in order to write books though.
I write every day. If you’re already in a privileged enough position to write, you’ll find a way to get the work done if you want to bad enough. For me that means waking up as early as possible and spending some time at the computer before I let the world in. I try not to be too hard on myself those mornings, especially on weekdays, when I have less time.
What’s next on your agenda?
There’s still plenty of non-writing things to do with Treeborne. Publicity will ramp up before I know it. As far as new writing, I’ve begun work on my next novel and I hope to complete a few non-fiction pieces I’ve been picking at lately.
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Caleb Johnson is a writer who grew up in the rural community of Arley, Alabama. His debut novel Treeborne will be published by Picador on June 5, 2018. Caleb earned a BA from The University of Alabama and an MFA from the University of Wyoming. He has worked as a small-town newspaper reporter, a janitor, and a whole-animal butcher, among many other jobs. Currently, Caleb lives with his partner Irina and their dog Hugo in Philadelphia, where he teaches while working on his next novel.
Caleb Johnson is the author of the novel Treeborne. He grew up in Arley, Alabama, studied journalism at The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and earned an MFA from the University of Wyoming.
Johnson has worked as a small-town newspaper reporter, an early-morning janitor, and a whole-animal butcher, among other jobs, and been awarded a Jentel Writing Residency and a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship in fiction to the Sewanee Writers' Conference. Currently, he lives with his partner, Irina, and their dog, Hugo, in Philadelphia, where he teaches while working on his next novel.
Treeborne
Publishers Weekly. 265.17 (Apr. 23, 2018): p62.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Treeborne
Caleb Johnson. Picador, $26 (320p) ISBN 978-1-250-16908-2
Using language rich as mulch, debut author Johnson tells the superb saga of three generations of Treebornes, who live near the town of Elberta in the southern reaches of Georgia. Janie Treeborne narrates much of the story, tripping through time beginning with the days of her grandaddy Hugh, forced by circumstance to join the Authority, behemoth builder of a modern dam. So as not to forget how things once were, Hugh becomes a maker of a strange art he calls "assemblies," figures made of mud, spiders' webs, and gears. His wife is Janie's beloved MawMaw, the postmaster Maybelle; she is in love with Lee Malone, the "man with the blue arms" who sings like an angel and tends orchards as old as the conquistador Hernando DeSoto. When Janie's aunt and uncle threaten to sell off and clear the ancient forest once home to her beloved grandparents, Janie and her friends kidnap her aunt to try to stop them, and she goes on the lam in the company of a magical doll made of dirt. Johnson's pervasive use of the colloquial, even when narrating, never gets irritating. Metaphors abound, and it isn't a coincidence the Treebornes' town shares a person's name; the whole place is as alive as if it walked on two feet. Sentence by loamy sentence, this gifted author digs up corpses and upends trees to create a place laden with magic and memory. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Treeborne." Publishers Weekly, 23 Apr. 2018, p. 62. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A536532871/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=648d6d66. Accessed 5 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A536532871
Treeborne
Bridget Thoreson
Booklist. 114.16 (Apr. 15, 2018): p32.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
* Treeborne.
By Caleb Johnson.
June 2018. 320p. Picador, $26 (9781250169082).
Janie Treeborne was just a girl when the trouble happened, right after the Hernando de Soto Peach Days Festival during the summer of 1958. But she would turn out to play a central role in the disappearance and return of her aunt Tammy in the weeks that followed. In his debut novel, Johnson has conjured a stunning account of the Treeborne family of Elberta, Alabama, creating an immersive sense of both time and place as he probes the memories and resentments that linger among the town's residents over the course of decades. Tammy disappears only a short time after her mother, Maybelle, a white woman, was found dead in the woods on her 700-acre peach orchard. Suspicion quickly turns to Lee Malone, a black man who had a close friendship--and more--with Maybelle. The crises bring the ugliness simmering under the surface of the town to a boil, with repercussions that echo through the years that follow. Mysteries swarm around the Treebornes, all the way back to Janie's grandfather, a self-taught artist whose work building the dam near Elberta at the start of the Great Depression leads to a secret that he and Maybelle would bury together. Majestic in scope, jam-packed with revelations and a touch of the fantastical, Treeborne is an enthralling story about what binds people together and breaks them apart.--Bridget Thoreson
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Thoreson, Bridget. "Treeborne." Booklist, 15 Apr. 2018, p. 32. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A537268096/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=937df6f3. Accessed 5 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A537268096
Johnson, Caleb: TREEBORNE
Kirkus Reviews. (Apr. 1, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Johnson, Caleb TREEBORNE Picador (Adult Fiction) $26.00 6, 5 ISBN: 978-1-250-16909-9
A debut Southern novel, like many in that tradition, which is rooted in place, populated by eccentric characters, and filled with a certain amount of gothic weirdness.
The narrative spans about 80 years and starts in the present day, when Janie Treeborne is being interviewed about her life and times. She lives alone in a house on the edge of a peach orchard in Elberta, Alabama, and she wants to tell how she acquired the house and how the history of her white family has been intimately entangled with the history of Elberta. She and her way of life are now being threatened by the destruction of the Hernando de Soto Dam, which has long served its purpose and is now threatening to give way. In lengthy and extended flashbacks to 1929, we learn about Hugh Treeborne, Janie's grandfather, who helped build the dam. And in another series of flashbacks to 1958, we're informed about the intermediate generation--especially Janie's father, Ren, and her Aunt Tammy, who had aspirations to go to Hollywood and become a movie star dating back to when she saw her first movie at the Elberta Rampatorium. The book has no central narrative thread but instead invites us to become acquainted with an odd cast of characters, both in and out of the Treeborne family, across three generations. Chief among these is Lee Malone, an African-American who formerly owned the peach orchard and also became the lover of Janie's grandmother (and Hugh's wife), Maybelle, and Ricky Birdsong, injured in both mind and body and attuned to seeing visions of Jesus. Johnson's prose can soar to poetic heights, though his language is always rooted in the Southern vernacular. In fact, even the third-person narrative voice speaks with a Southern accent. ("You could still do things thataway back then"; "Pud Ward got hisself a new haircut.")
A lyrical effusion deeply rooted in place and steeped in quirky characters.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Johnson, Caleb: TREEBORNE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532700564/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=b242e345. Accessed 5 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A532700564