Idiot Farm Releases

Idiot Farm is told through the eyes of young Flynn Bolenn during the hot, molasses-slow summer of 1972.

“The Vietnam War rages on, and Daddy signed up to fight. Now he’s gone missing,” Flynn muses. “Mama dumped me and my brother, Willie, at my grandmother’s farm in Haley, Alabama, while she takes my little sister, Sunny, all over the state to compete in Little Miss beauty pageants. Me and Willie ain’t the only ones staying here, either. Ida Mae takes care of a bushel of reject kids the state can’t find a home for. Idiots. All of ’em. There’s a serial killer on the loose targeting pretty little girls… ones that win Little Miss beauty pageants.

“Oh. And there’s a monster in the cellar.”

“While most authors seem to start with a character or a plot they want to pursue, I almost always start with a place. An intriguing place. A haunting place,” says author Susie Mattox. “In Idiot Farm, that place was my grandmother’s farm in rural northwest Alabama. I was four or five years old, so my memories are vague. Grunting hogs in the barn. The stench of raw sewage. The old well behind the house with water so cold it made our teeth hurt when we drank it from a tin cup. And the foster kids my grandmother took in. As young as I was, I understood it was a good thing she did. But there was an other-worldliness about these children that I truly didn’t understand.

“The Vietnam War was a big part of my early years,” she continues. “I remember the protests. The black-and-white footage of war. I remember George Wallace being shot as he campaigned for the presidency, although I didn’t understand it either at the time. And the early 1970s revealed the shock of serial killers across the country. The Manson Family, the Zodiac Killer, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy. All of those vague memories morphed into Idiot Farm.

“As a child of the 1960s and ’70s, I can attest to the authenticity of the thoughts and actions of a young boy on the cusp of manhood in an age before the internet,” said Mike Parker, publisher at WordCrafts Press. “Susie has done a marvelous job of not only climbing inside the head of the main character, but of capturing the slow, simmering fury of abandonment, the mounting fear of an unknown killer, and the inexorable call to manhood. It all makes for a novel that is not-put-downable.”

Susie adds, “While my maternal grandmother introduced me to ghosts and creepy black-and-white horror movies in her seemingly haunted house, my fraternal grandmother introduced me to rural Alabama. The dirt beneath my fingertips, decrepit barns, golden cornfields, dark forests, and the secrets of a buried root cellar. I hope that through the strangeness and sometimes darkness of Idiot Farm, readers will realize how much value each of us has in this world. All of us – the disadvantaged, the unloved, the forgotten – we were each designed with an amazing and important purpose. Even the least of us. Perhaps especially the least of us.”

“As a child of the 1960s and ’70s, I can attest to the authenticity of the thoughts and actions of a young boy on the cusp of manhood in an age before the internet,” said Mike Parker, publisher at WordCrafts Press. “Susie has done a marvelous job of not only climbing inside the head of the main character, but of capturing the slow, simmering fury of abandonment, the mounting fear of an unknown killer, and the inexorable call to manhood. It all makes for a novel that is not-put-downable.”

Susie adds, “While my maternal grandmother introduced me to ghosts and creepy black-and-white horror movies in her seemingly haunted house, my fraternal grandmother introduced me to rural Alabama. The dirt beneath my fingertips, decrepit barns, golden cornfields, dark forests, and the secrets of a buried root cellar. I hope that through the strangeness and sometimes darkness of Idiot Farm, readers will realize how much value each of us has in this world. All of us – the disadvantaged, the unloved, the forgotten – we were each designed with an amazing and important purpose. Even the least of us. Perhaps especially the least of us.”

About the Author

Susie Mattox is an author and Alabama native who developed an interest in ghosts and the macabre spending summers in her grandmother’s home, which was haunted. She lives in Montgomery, Alabama, with her husband and two dogs, and struggles to keep up with her kids who’ve flown the coop. When she’s not writing, she’s competitive ballroom dancing and working on sassying up her samba. She is currently working on a sequel to her first published novel, Fairly Strange, a Southern gothic ghost story, that was published in October 2019. She is available for book readings, book clubs, and book signings.

Susie is on Facebook, Twitter @mattox_susie, and Instagram @susiemattoxwrites