Interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Clay Wallace, WUKY
I'm here with Tammy Oberhausen, who's currently touring with her debut novel, The Evolution of the Gospelettes. Can you introduce us to the Gospelettes?
Tammy Oberhausen, Author of The Evolution of the Gospelettes
Yes, I will. So, The Evolution of the Gospelettes is a novel that starts in 1972 when Garland Holliman in southern Kentucky hears his three teenage daughters singing, harmonizing in the kitchen while they're doing the dishes, and he gets this idea that he is going to start a family gospel group. So that's what he does. He starts a group with his wife, Big Jean, his son, Junior, and the three girls, Jeannie, Debbie, and Patty, and they become quite popular around Kentucky and the region.
It just follows them from being old-time gospel singers in the 1970s to being performers on a television show in Nashville in the '80s, and then to starting their own megachurch in the '90s. Over that time period, Jeannie, who is the oldest daughter and the lead singer of the group, her faith begins to change. She begins to see things differently from her family, and she begins to see that the televangelists that they have been following is kind of shady, and she's trying to save the family from what she sees as their destruction.
Clay
Your novel spans decades as it follows the Holliman family in changing roles and in a changing world. "Evolution" is even in the title. How did you hold on to this family through such a long window?
Tammy
Evolution was really important. I had to have it in the title, because it was really about looking at the evolution of these individuals, of the family, of their community, the evangelical church in America, and even the music they play that evolves over that time period. That's what I was really interested in exploring, how that happens, why some people change in one way and other people don't.
It was a little bit difficult to follow them over that period of time. I did have some people who read the novel and saw that it took me a long time to write it, and they were saying, "Maybe you're just trying to get too many years in here; maybe you just need to write about one year in their life."
I just really saw that that was what the book was about. It was about this evolution. I find it fascinating. I was living at that time; I was a kid in the early '70s. The changes in society were just incredible over that time period. There were changes for everybody, but I was just imagining this old-time gospel group and the way that they saw the world and the way that they saw themselves and how all these tremendous changes in society would affect them.
Clay
Were there real-life stories or real-life performers or families, that inspired you to create this work?
Tammy
I grew up listening to gospel music, both at home and at church. My mother had the local AM radio station on every day - it was WRUS in Russellville. They played gospel music pretty much every morning and then all day Sunday, so I grew up listening to it. And then, at our church, there were gospel groups that performed - including one that I really enjoyed that had some relatives of mine in it.
On my father's side of the family, some of my happiest memories are being a child and the family would get together. My father had several brothers and sisters and play guitars and harmonicas and sing together, so the idea of a singing family was really interesting to me.
Clay
Singing families are a powerful trope in media! I mean, The Sound of Music is about a singing family. Were there particular ones that you felt yourself called back to remembering as you were writing this book?
Tammy
There were a lot of songs that I recalled - and I actually use a lot of those songs in the book; they either sing them or they're used as chapter titles, and I made a playlist on Spotify of all the songs. I think there was something like 94 songs on the playlist, and I would go back and listen to some of them and imagine these characters singing those songs.
The one singer that I kind of think of as a model for Jeannie, as far as her voice, is Vestal Goodman of the Happy Goodman Family. She just has this incredible voice.
Clay
I'd like to explore the theme of faith a little bit more. The Evolution of the Gospelettes sees Jeannie finding herself distanced from the beliefs of the rest of her family. In what ways does that manifest?
Tammy
Without giving away too many plot points, she begins to question the shady televangelists that they get involved with in the '80s. That is kind of the turning point for her where she goes in a different direction from the rest of the family.
I think we see it a lot, whether it's religion or politics or whatever, families being split apart, even though they grew up in the same house and had the same influences; for whatever reason, people have different opinions that develop their own perspectives. I wanted to explore that and think about, you know, how does that happen? Why does that happen?
Clay
Did you find answers to that? How and why? [laughter] Everyone would love to know.
Tammy
I know! I still want to know! How and why it happens, that is a mystery.
One thing that I really felt was going on with some of the family members - and especially her father, Garland - is fear. He has a lot of fear. He's worried about the changes that he sees in society. This is not what he imagined for his children, the things that were going on in the '70s. It was kind of like the '60s finally arrived in Kentucky in the '70s, you know?
Everything that he does is really out of fear. He loves his family, he wants to protect them. He doesn't want Jeannie to go to college because he's afraid of what happens to girls at college. That's the best answer I could come up with.
Clay
When you explore those sorts of themes, I think there's always a hope behind it. There's, "I want there to be an answer;" "I want there to be a way to repair this relationship;" "I want there to be something that reaches across fear." Did you find something that helps present that bridge to people?
Tammy
The love that this family has never goes away, despite the rifts within the family. There are time periods when they are not in communication and when they are arguing, but I think the love is evident throughout, from beginning to the end. I see that as really the only hope for this family - or for any group of people, any society - for them to remember the love that they have for each other. And let that, we hope, override the fear and division.
Clay
How was your own faith background present through the writing of this book?
Tammy
Well, I relied a lot on my own memories of growing up and attending a little country church and listening to gospel music. At the time that I started writing this book, which was in the '90s - it's been 30 years! - I think I had a little bit of a longing for that time. I felt things had changed so much; it was something that I couldn't go back to because everything was different. Maybe this was kind of reliving it in a way, going back and reliving those times.
It's certainly fiction, but writers always draw from our experiences, our own lives, our memories, people that we know, and kind of weave it all together into something.
Clay
To zoom in on something you said: you wrote this book, which takes place over a period of three decades, over a period of three decades?
Tammy
The three following decades! Yeah, isn't that crazy? I did; I started it in the early '90s. Being young in my 20s then, I really didn't know what I was doing. I mean, I had been an English major and I had a bachelor's and master's degree in English and had studied all the great works of literature, but I didn't really know how to write one. I was kind of teaching myself how to do that and trying to figure it out.
Then, as time went on, I got in my 30s and 40s. I'm, at this point, married. I have children. I'm working full time. It's just a lot to try to do basically three jobs, you know; a job where you're working, a job at home, and then trying to write a novel. That's, I guess, my excuse for why it took so long, kind of dipping in and out of it over the years.
I think a big part of it, too, was a lack of confidence and maybe some perfectionism, you know? When you study all the literary canon and then you sit down and you're trying to write something... You know you're not Shakespeare, but you're trying.
It really helped later on when I went to the Appalachian Writers' Workshop. I got into the MFA program at Spalding. It was really important to get some support and some feedback and some community rather than to be writing in isolation like I had been for all those years before.
Clay
So, for this to have been a part of your life and your routine for such a long time, does it feel like you're finished with it now? Is it different to you now?
Tammy
Wow, yeah. It's really strange having it out in the world after it's just been in my head all these years. Now other people are meeting these characters.
I had the strangest dream a few months ago. In this dream, I looked out the window and I saw a van driving slowly down the street, and I saw a woman chained to the van, running alongside it. I was so horrified, like, what is going on in this dream?
I woke up and then I realized, oh, that's the Gospelettes' van, and I'm the woman that's chained to the van.
For a while, I was like, "Why can't I let it go?" And now I'm thinking, well, maybe it's that they wouldn't let me go.
Clay
Music is another central theme that takes a role in The Evolution of the Gospelettes. How do you convey the power and beauty of music in a written medium?
Tammy
It's not easy. You know, music is its own language. It's almost like it doesn't need our verbal language because it communicates in its own way. The job of the writer trying to write about musicians is to capture the feeling of the music.
I would have to listen to songs over and over and just kind of imagine what the characters would be doing with their bodies; what they would feel in their bodies when they're singing or playing the music or listening to it. It is not easy to write about music.
People have such a strong connection to music, it just does something in your brain. I was reading a study about how when people listen to music together, their brain waves will sync up. Amazing things are going on when you're listening to music or performing music. It's so mysterious and really kind of hard to capture.
Clay
Was there a character, maybe besides Jeannie, that you felt the closest to as you were writing? Or, maybe, a character that you grew to understand better?
Tammy
I really grew to understand all the characters better as I wrote. I think that Wick, Jeannie's husband, was kind of surprising because he is not at all, on appearance, a good match for her. She's a good church girl and he is actually a drug dealer in their town; he's the son of a bootlegger and looked down upon by her family because of his activities. You wouldn't necessarily expect that character to be very sympathetic, but he's actually very loving and kind of a shelter in the storm for Jeannie in a lot of ways.
Clay
What was it like to work with University Press of Kentucky?
Tammy
It was a great experience. I published with Fireside Industries, which is an imprint of the University Press of Kentucky. Silas House is the editor. I actually had worked with Silas at Spalding! He was my mentor in my last semester, so he had seen this novel before and helped me work on it. When it was accepted for publication there, he did the editing. Of course he's such an amazing writer and editor and champion of writers and of literature in Kentucky, so that was wonderful.
Clay
You have some upcoming events throughout November promoting your book all across Kentucky. Where can people catch you?
Tammy
Yes, I have the Kentucky Book Festival on November 2nd in Lexington. On November 12th, I will be in Frankfort at Paul Sawyer Public Library at 6 p.m. Then on November 15th, I will be at The Capitol, which is a theater in Bowling Green. The Warren County Public Library there is going to be hosting an evening with Silas House, so we're going to be having a conversation there. I'm really looking forward to that.
Then the following two Saturdays, November 16th and 23rd, I have a couple of bookstore appearances. On the 16th, I'll be at Read Spotted Newt in Hazard. Then, on the 23rd, I will be in Ashland, Kentucky at Broadway Books.
Clay
Where else can people connect with you and with your work?
Tammy
I have a website, which is tammyoberhausen.com. I also have an Instagram and Facebook
Clay
This has been Clay Wallace with WUKY and Tammy Oberhausen, author of The Evolution of the Gospelettes, now available in bookstores and online.