By Forrest Preece
“Walk Softly On This Heart of Mine”
Callie Collins, Author
I met Austin native Callie Collins years ago when she was a wunderkind, barely out of high school, and already handling major league editing jobs. When I saw her intelligence and talent, I told myself that I wanted to observe how her writing career would progress. Now her first novel is out, published by Doubleday no less, and it’s even better than I could have imagined.
Set in the freewheeling Austin of 1975, "Walk Softly On This Heart of Mine" immerses the reader in the city's music scene. It’s an anything-but-laid-back milieu, where bar owners and performers are weighed down by the reality of paying the bills, dealing with customers, writing fresh songs, and keeping their personal relationships marginally corralled, if not steady.
The book has three sections that seamlessly connect. The first two are written in the first person to plug into the inner viewpoints of the characters. There’s Doug Moser, a guitar player, composer, and band leader who lucks into a steady gig at Rush Creek Saloon after its co-owner Wendell Teague hears him at the Armadillo one night. The deal even includes residence in a house out back, plenty big enough for him, his partner Gwen, and his son Julian. The second part is told by Deanna Teague, Wendell’s wife and co-owner of the bar, who has a thing for Doug, try as she might to suppress it. Then there is the final part, centering around the misfit hanger-on Steven Frances, who is consumed with a desire for attention and to connect with Doug. In a brilliant stroke, Collins writes Steven’s section in the third person to provide an otherness and neutral viewpoint to this part of the plot.
The novel artfully captures the struggles and triumphs of these characters, each navigating their challenges. For those of us who lived here in 1975, it has a special poignancy. It takes us deep into the raw backstories of running a bar and the music scene with its grating conflict between social groups (you know what I mean). With literary grace, Collins illuminates the highs and lows of this era. I felt echoes in her writing of Cormac McCarthy and Denis Johnson, and in Steven’s case, Carson McCullers. But it’s not fair to say that Collins’s voice is anything but her own. "Walk Softly On This Heart of Mine" is an important first novel, and I’m eager to read her next effort. It’s available at bookstores around town or online. (Warning: if you’re expecting a rom-com book where everyone hugs at the end and rides off into the sunset singing songs by Willie and Dolly, nope, try something else.)
