Writer Samantha Evans Tschritter joins me today to chat about her creative non-fiction memoir, The Prodigal’s Son: Crackhead to Jesus Freak.
Bio:
Multi-award-winning author S. E. Tschritter (pronounced Shridder) specializes in articulating grief and loss, leading grievers toward hope and healing. Whether poetry, fiction, or non-fiction, Tschritter writes content that will stick with readers long after they close the cover. Her 20-plus years of leadership experience and contributions to over 40 books enable her to serve others, speaking truth with transparency, humor, and love.
Welcome, Samantha. Please tell us about your current release.
Rather than adjusting the pulpit mike one October Sunday, Pastor Clint woke up in the hospital to a .24 Blood-Alcohol-Content, a cancer diagnosis, and an arrest for a felony charge of fleeing police after a drunk-driving rampage. The Prodigal’s Son: Crackhead to Jesus Freak chronicles one man’s lifelong battle against demons, addictions, and unworthiness and portrays God’s backlash of grace toward a man whom others branded “unredeemable.”
What inspired you to write this book?
This story is my late husband’s journey from addiction to sobriety to pastoral ministry to relapse. The scene below is in the book and it’s the best description I can give you of how the story became a book. Clint wanted people to know that no matter how badly they screwed up, no one was beyond the bounds of God’s grace. At one point he says, “If God can use a screw up like me, He can use anybody.”
The girls’ bedtime routine complete, the house fell into a reverent stillness. I tiptoed down the steps and leaned against the doorway of the living room, exhausted. My eyes fell on Clint, sitting in his spot on the couch—not reclined back, cackling at a Will Ferrell comedy as I expected to find him.
He hunched forward, elbows propped up on his knees, head in hands. Light from the floor lamp beside him cast a yellow glow over his left shoulder, leaving the rest of him in shadow. I remembered this posture from ten years prior—a vivid memory from the day we lost our first baby. I hadn’t recognized him then, either.
Should I give him space or does he want company? Indecision kept my feet planted.
When he spoke, his voice sounded scratchy, like he’d been crying. “Sam, what are the odds I’d marry an author with experience interviewing others and writing their God-stories, and whose best work comes from wounds?”
I dropped my head, knowing what would come next. His story was so dark, I cringed inwardly just hearing snippets over the course of our fourteen-year marriage. Please don’t ask me to do this.
I wasn’t sure if I directed the plea to Clint or God. Clint’s relapse forged a breech in trust only time and effort could mend. Legal ramifications and chemotherapy treatments laid claim to both. There hadn’t been space to work on “us.”
Interviewing my husband would thrust me into an emotional intimacy that terrified me. Anger and resentment existed where love and trust once resided. Communion stung. No, please.
“I want you to interview me. I want you to write my story. How does it work?”
“I interview you and take notes. I record our interviews with an audio recorder in case I miss something. Then I write your story for you in first person, as if I were you. This isn’t a small ask.”
“When do we start?”
I exhaled. “Probably tonight.”
Excerpt from The Prodigal’s Son: Crackhead to Jesus Freak:
He said 6:00 p.m., so for two hours I battled every X-chromosome in my body screaming, “Are you on your way home?” “How close are you?” “Why are you so late?” Nagging wife melded with mom brain. “Maybe he made new friends. … Oh, that would be awesome.”
Okay, if he isn’t home by the time I get the girls to bed, I’ll call. The Little Mouse ate up his red, ripe strawberry a mite faster. The slow, sweet bedtime song galloped at a “William Tell Overture” pace. Rushed kisses camouflaged as “silly.” Good nights and air hugs. A closed door. A sigh of relief.
I stumbled into my bedroom and dialed my husband’s number. No answer. I tried again. No answer. I checked the ringer volume on my phone, so I would hear when he called.
I pressed my thumb to the green circle on the screen. Again. No answer.
I made sure my phone wasn’t set to Do Not Disturb. 10:00 p.m. came and went. No answer. Dread crept in. I checked for missed calls on the phone glued to my palm.
And brushed my teeth. Took my contacts out. No answer. Went to the bathroom. Changed into pajamas. Still no answer. Zombies attacked the main characters on the TV screen, but I barely noticed. My husband had thirty-eight missed calls from me. I hit send again. Just for the heck of it. Thirty-nine. Forty.
At 11:11, I wished not to kill him when I spoke to him again. At 11:30 I pretended the forty-one different emotions churning in my stomach wouldn’t keep me awake. At 1:30 a.m. Sunday morning, the sound of my ring pierced the darkness.
“Clint?”
“Mrs. Evans?” A man’s voice, but not my husband’s.
“This is.”
“This is a sergeant from the New Ulm police department. There’s been an accident. Your husband’s alive, but he’s been taken to the hospital.”
My heart screeched to a halt. Please tell me I’m wrong.
“Was it alcohol?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t say for certain. But he’s all right.”
Anger sideswiped fear. I rolled my eyes. “Not when I’m done with him.”
“Excuse me?”
My eyes widened, realizing what I’d said and to whom. “Never mind.” The inappropriate, poorly-timed joke wouldn’t be my last.
“Mrs. Evans, your husband will be arrested upon discharge from the hospital. “He …” I heard “fled from officers,” “side swiped a car,” “hit a utility box…” but the sergeant continued. So, yes, alcohol, then. Pain stabbed my heart. No, no, please, no. I can’t live through another Chicago. And we have so much more to lose now. “Oh, my God. Please.”
The call ended. It must have, because I wrote this seven years later and we’re not still on the phone, but I have zero recollection of a “goodbye.”
I stared at my closed bedroom door, where just beyond girls five, four, and two years old dreamed in blissful innocence.
Church tomorrow. Today. I groaned and rolled my eyes. “Really. On a Saturday night?” I calculated how much time I’d need to get the girls ready. I hoped I’d fall asleep more easily, knowing where Clint was. Every time I nearly fell asleep, my brain blasted me with another implication of loss as a result of the accident.
I woke up to the alarm at 7:30 a.m. I catapulted out of bed, rehearsing the words I’d share with the congregation. At 7:45, while I rinsed conditioner from my hair, the phone rang. I dried my hand on a towel in route to the phone. “Sergeant Reid?”
“Mrs. Evans?” A female voice.
“This is.”
“I’m a nurse calling from the hospital. The doctor found something on the CT scan. You need to come in right away.”
Conditioner coated my hair. Water puddled at my feet. Six hours prior, Sergeant Reid’s call thrust me into survival mode. Already running on adrenaline, already navigating damage control, already in shock, my brain did not have enough storage space to compute her words. Three children suddenly felt like extraneous puzzle pieces. “The soonest I can get there is 11:30.”
Silence stretched on the other end. “Mrs. Evans, we can’t talk to him without you here.”
That didn’t feel true. What do you do with single people? Wait for their spouse? But, okay.
“You need to get here as soon as possible,” she repeated. “Don’t bring your kids.”
The hospital was fifteen minutes away. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
I hung up. Rinsed the conditioner. Phoned Janet from the leadership team. “Clint was in an accident last night. I was going to make an announcement this morning, but they found something in the CT scan. Can you let Faith United Methodist know, please? … Thanks.”
Without hesitation, I scrolled to Erin’s number.
Years prior, Erin battled a heroin addiction and broke free, by the grace of God. People who’ve been in it don’t pass judgment. And don’t need explanations.
“Clint was in an accident last night. I think alcohol was involved.”
“Bring the kids over.”
My girls might have been barefoot when I left them with Erin, for all I remember.
What exciting project are you working on next?
The Lakeshore’s Secret is my debut novel and it’s a closed-door, romantic suspense. The release date is March 31st! I think the world needed The Prodigal’s Son: Crackhead to Jesus Freak, but I’m super excited to step into the fiction realm for awhile.
Here’s a teaser for The Lakeshore’s Secret:
After multiple break-ins to her Chicago apartment, marketing executive Tasha Baker flees to her grandma’s small town in the Northwoods of Minnesota. Bust just after her arrival, her grandma is poisoned, and three million dollars goes missing. Someone believes Tasha holds the key to finding the money, but she doesn’t, does she? Seven people are dead and now, without the help of her ex—who broke her trust and her heart—she’ll become the killer’s next victim.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
The writer in me was always there but I didn’t see it.
In third grade, the night before submissions were due, I decided to enter a poetry contest. I whipped up a poem in five minutes, submitted, and won first place at district.
I remember riding to birthday parties with my cousins in the back of my dad’s station wagon. One time, I invented a story on the spot called The Bunny Burglars. For every party after that, my cousins begged me to continue the saga.
Okay, and don’t judge. I have a confession. I played with Barbies until I was in ninth grade. I was old enough to know not to mention my hobby to my classmates. I realized much later that I was using the Barbies to tell stories.
Telling stories has always been a part of me, but I didn’t realize I was a writer until I’d contributed to several books on Amazon. Several friends pointed out to me that normal people don’t write and publish books for fun. That’s when I finally owned it.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I write from 7:30 a.m. until 2:45 p.m, Monday-Friday—while my daughters are at school and my husband is at work. When they get home, I try to give them my full attention. But sometimes if everyone else is busy with something else, I’ll bust out my laptop. Writing has never ever felt like a “have to” for me. It a “get to.” I am so blessed to love what I do.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I would rather write a book that watch TV. Oh, and I can’t, physically cannot write, unless my hair is in a bun. Off my neck. That quirk is so bad, that I have pinned my hair up with all sorts of substitutes if I can’t find a hair tie—twisty-ties, actual rubber bands, pencils, hats. If my hair is on my neck, it distracts me. And if you’re wondering, yes, I realize how crazy that sounds.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A chorus dancer for musicals. Being part of a flash mob is a bucket list item for me.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
The Prodigal’s Son: Crackhead to Jesus Freak is my horcrux—it required a piece of my soul. The book is for you. If you need to hear the words, “You are loved, you are worthy of love, you are not alone,” then this book is for you. One of my gifts is articulating difficult topics that others can’t put into words themselves. If you didn’t exist, I would not have finished the book.
A writer is mute without a reader. Thank you so much for taking the time to get to know me better. If you ever want to share your thoughts with me, I would love to hear them. AuthorLoveSamEvans@gmail.com. I answer my emails myself.
Links:
Website | LinkTree | Amazon | Join Newsletter for three free chapters of The Prodigal’s Son