The Girl Who Came Back To Life by Craig Staufenberg Book Review, Excerpt & Interview

Publisher: Create Space  (April 16, 2014)

ISBN: 978-1497532731

Category: Fantasy, Magic, Fairytale

Tour Date: October, 2014

Available in: Print & ebook, 180 Pages

"When you die, your spirit wakes in the north, in the City of the Dead. There, you wander the cold until one of your living loved ones finds you, says "Goodbye," and Sends you to the next world.

After her parents die, 12-year-old Sophie refuses to release their spirits. Instead, she resolves to travel to the City of the Dead to bring her mother and father's spirits back home with her.

Taking the long pilgrimage north with her gruff & distant grandmother-by train, by foot, by boat; over ruined mountains and plains and oceans-Sophie struggles to return what death stole from her. Yet the journey offers her many hard, unexpected lessons-what to hold on to, when to let go, and who she must truly bring back to life."

Excerpt

CHAPTER 23

GLASS

Sophie gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the heavy darkness hanging

in the air outside the boarding house. She saw figures lying on the

ground beside her, travelers who couldn’t fit inside the boarding house,

now sleeping against the building or the building’s steps, coats laid over their

bodies like blankets.

She looked away from these unmoving bodies and across the courtyard, up

to the road where the supply trucks lay and the sound of competition rose. The

rough-looking men who had previously loaded and unloaded those trucks now

sat in front of their vehicles in a circle, lit by harsh, humming electric lanterns.

The men crowded tight and Sophie saw them sitting still and occasionally

exploding in sound and motion and yells at each other, but otherwise she

couldn’t see what they were up to.

Sophie smiled at each of these outbursts and inched her way forward into

the dark courtyard, slowly and quietly, attempting to maneuver close enough

to see what games the men were playing without anyone noticing she was there.

She crept closer and closer and closer still, until there was a sharp crackling

sound beneath her foot. She paused in place. The men looked up. They turned

towards her. Sophie stood still, paralyzed. She didn’t dare speak a word as she

watched their eyes glinting towards her. Hard eyes darkly set in craggy faces

made even sharper from the lanterns spilling over their features.

One of the men squinted and called to the group, “It’s just a little girl…”

Another thick voice called out, “How little?”

The first face squinted harder and replied, “Too little.”

The men laughed loudly. One of the men stood and stepped out of the

circle towards Sophie and called back to the others, “Let’s see what she wants.”

Sophie’s heart sped up and she found her feet once more and turned to run.

She’d taken only a few steps before the man rushed towards her and grabbed

her with an arm like iron and hoisted her small frame against his side. Sophie

thrashed against him but he squeezed a little tighter and she went quiet as

she realized this man could easily pinch her in half if he so desired. His voice

boomed down to her and she felt it rumble deep in his chest and through her

body. “We don’t like little thieves too much. That’s why we set up the glass, to

catch sneaky little thieves like you.”

As the man carried her towards the humming lights, Sophie looked down

at the ground and saw a thin, glinting ring of crushed glass shards surrounding

the small supply camp.

The camp fell silent. Too silent, Sophie worried, as the man brought

her into their circle and set her down on the ground in the middle, beside

a short crate.

Sophie sat up and looked around. The rough men surrounded her. They

stared down at her with stern eyes and hard-set mouths. She turned her head

this way and that, but there was no break in this noose of men, no escape to

be found. She sat back and waited. One of the men’s voices grunted out from

behind her.

“She’s a gypsy kid.”

Sophie turned to look at who spoke, but when she swiveled she only saw

closed faces. A new voice called out from her right side.

“No she’s not, look at her. Doesn’t look like any gypsy kid to me.”

Another voice, now from her left.

“She came down from the mountains. She was going to steal something.”

Sophie whipped again, and again a new voice called out from behind her.

“No she didn’t. She came from the boarding house.”

Sophie turned again, and again a voice called from her side.

“Just some dumb kid.”

Sophie turned.

“Too dumb.”

Sophie’s stomach gave out with those words and she curled her legs up and

against her body and looked down at the dry and dusty ground as the men

debated around her.

“Ah, look. We’ve scared her.”

“We’re being rough with her.”

“Let’s just let her go.”

“She’s a thief !”

“She didn’t take anything.”

“She knows about the glass now, she’ll come back later.”

“She won’t come back.”

“She won’t come back if we don’t let her leave.”

A deep voice called out to the rest of the men, “Knock it off already.”

A rough hand pushed against Sophie’s back, and the deep-voiced man

called down to her, “Wake up kid. Get out of here. Mommy and daddy are

gonna miss you.”

Sophie’s fear and anger shot up inside her and snapped at the mention of

her parents, and she spun around and swung and fiercely slapped the man

who had touched her.

Time stopped as the man she hit looked down at her. He appeared carved

from oak and his face twisted in shock and surprise. The blood drained from

her face. She knew those men really would kill her now, and she heard the

circle around her crack apart with shattering noise.

For a moment Sophie could only hear the thunder of men’s voices. She

could feel their calls and their cries and the knives in their voices. She resigned

herself to their violence.

Yet not a finger fell on Sophie’s frail body, and as her breathing tempered

once more and she looked about her, she saw the men weren’t shouting at her;

they were laughing.

She looked up and turned her head around her and saw that every man

was doubled over or pulled back with hard humor. Their faces split open with

grins and drunken glee as they cackled and pointed at Sophie and the redfaced

man she had slapped. Even that man’s mouth split open with a massive

grin as he sat back onto the ground and placed a meaty, calloused palm on

Sophie’s shoulder and spoke down to her with vinegar breath, “Kid…. you’ve

got some FIRE in you! Stay and relax a moment.”

Interview

Where are you from?

I grew up in Upstate NY, in Albany. I went to school in central PA, bounced around for a few years, and then settled down in NYC, where I currently live.

Tell us your latest news?

Nothing to report. Currently working hard, but I prefer to not talk about projects until they’re complete.

When and why did you begin writing?
I began putting together stories when I was about 5 years old. I’m not sure when I started actually writing them out, but it was also at a young age.

In short: I’ve been writing my whole life. It’s instinctual, something I just do naturally, and I feel it’s something I have to do. For me it’s up there with food, water, and air.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I still don’t consider myself a writer. I just tell stories, and writing is a component of that. I only really began to identify as a “writer”—and began to call myself one—when I started to write professionally. It’s easy shorthand, but I’m not as concerned with the label as other people are.

What inspired you to write your first book?
You know how it is—you get a feeling and a story inside you and it just has to come out.

Do you have a specific writing style?
I feel people shouldn’t think too much about their own style. Doing so intellectualizes the whole process, and I feel writing has to come from an instinctual, emotional, physical place. Writing isn’t like designing a washing machine. You don’t sit down and set a crisp, practical intention of what you’re going to write, how you’re going to write it, and what the clearly-defined outcome of the writing process will be. You just write and see what comes through you.

How did you come up with the title?
From one of my beta readers, actually. I had a working title that I wasn’t entirely happy with, and which none of my beta readers felt was a clear telling of what the book was about. So I toyed with a lot of different title ideas as I worked through drafts of the book, and eventually one of my beta readers—a poetic person himself—inspired the title with a comment he made.

In summing the book and his experience with it, he noted the book was about how Sophie herself—and not her parents—was the one who had to return to life. I felt that was a lovely way of summing it all up, and I stuck it in as the title for the following draft. The next rounds of beta readers responded to the title, and I liked it more and more every day, so it stuck, and it continues to feel right and to resonate with readers.

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
I hesitate to assign a specific message to the novel. Not because it’s message-less, or post modern or anything like that. It’s a fairly straightforward story. But rather, I want to leave room for readers to have their own responses and to find the message in the book that resonates with them and them alone.

So even though I can clearly say “The book is about love and loss, and how we can live in a world filled with both”, I’ll leave it up to readers to figure out what, exactly, that has to do with their own life.

How much of the book is realistic?
The feelings, the emotions, the intentions of the characters… all of these are realistic.

When I think about what’s “realistic” in fiction, especially fiction that has fantastical elements like my book, I remember how Philip Pullman talked about the His Dark Materials series he wrote. Those books, start to finish, are filled with high fantasy elements. But he says the books are stark realism. He feels the psychology of his characters is realistic, and the themes he deals with are concrete, grounded, real-world human themes—even if there are talking polar bears and witches in the milieu.

As Pullman says about his books: “The fantasy is there to support and embody” the very human themes. The fantasy isn’t there “for its own sake.”

I approach fantasy and reality in my book the same way.

Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

They’re based on my own emotional experiences. I dove into my feelings of love and loss, and this book came out. So the book is highly personal for me, and putting it out there makes me feel exposed, even though the book clearly isn’t biographical—auto or otherwise.

What books have most influenced your life most?
I couldn’t say. Thinking too much about your influences isn’t a good idea. You become the centipede who forgets how to dance the second he becomes conscious of his hundred feet.

If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
Lived experience is the best mentor a writer could have.

What book are you reading now?
Lately I’ve been reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius every morning. I’ve reread this book many times over the last few years, and it helps me get through the good and the bad. What more could you ask from a book?

Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?
I’m sure there are many wonderful new authors out there, but I don’t know about any of them. I write a lot more than I read.

What are your current projects?
I’m doing a lot more script writing than book writing at the moment. Beyond that I won’t say. It’s bad luck to talk about projects you’re working on. At the least, it’s a waste of time. Anything I say now could be untrue by the time the work is done. You don’t really know what a project IS until it’s complete.

What would you like my readers to know?
That life is a good thing and you’re going to be ok. 

About Craig Staufenberg:

Craig Staufenberg is a writer and filmmaker living in NYC.

Website: http://craigstaufenberg.com/

Twitter:https://twitter.com/YouMakeArtDumb
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YouMakeArtDumb
 Google+: https://plus.google.com/108490376831859338288/posts

My review:
I just finished reading The Girl Who Came Back to Life by Craig Staufenberg. It is a sad story that starts for a little girl named Sophie when finds herself an orphan when her parents die. She really believes that she came bring them back so she sets off on journey. This novel is about a little girl and her struggle to deal with her loss. She decides that there is nothing that she can do. I give this book a 4/5. I was given this book for the purpose of a review and all opinions are my own.