Oscar Patton uses regional materials to create novels that explore universal themes: love, hate, greed, lasciviousness. He attempts to blend fiction with south Georgia history and culture to create a strong sense of place as well as dynamic characters shaped by their interaction with community values and tradition. "I deliberately blur the line between fact and fiction," he says. "I believe in the mantra of my attorney friend Buford: 'Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.'" And, he says, I add a twist: "I start with fact, render it to fiction, and then disguise it as truth." How does he see his first novel When the Bough Breaks: Rockabye Baby? "If Citizen Kane married Scarlett O'Hara and Ernest Hemingway wrote their story, you'd have When the Bough Breaks: Rockabye Baby." Does he think he's Ernest Hemingway? "Oh, good Lord, no, but you get my point. Read my book." Oscar's second novel, Riding the Fantastics, is about the murder of the last Cracker king, a fabulously wealthy cattle ranger and country Don Juan whose death in 1899 marked the end of south Georgia's old herding culture, an astonishing way of life developed in the last half of the nineteenth century under the longleaf yellow pines. Who killed Boy Man Hardin? What precipitated the end of an age? The book's narrators--characters in the drama--answer these questions. Oscar Patton, Ph.D., lives on a piece of the old family farm in south Georgia, the setting for all his works. Rachel is seventh in his Satilla County series, all novels based on actual events and slices of history. Oscar likes reading, gardening, college football, and brooding in his lounge chair. See also A Place to Call Home, The Sheriff, The Doctor, and Serpent in the Pines in Oscar's Satilla County Series. Also check out Oscar's guest post on seriousreading.com here: http://seriousreading.com/author-interviews/19071-interview-with-oscar-patton-author-of-rachel-a-satilla-county-novel.html Also, learn more about Oscar via Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6041575.Oscar_Patton
