Best-selling author Colleen Oakley visits Savannah for new 'Thelma & Louise' inspired book
USA Today best-selling author and South Carolina native Colleen Oakley returns to Savannah to promote her upcoming novel, "The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise," a road trip adventure story of geriatric elderly woman Louise Wilt and her crazy past that comes back to haunt her and she must fend it off with the aid of 21-year-old college drop out Tanner Quimberly.
When forced to take care of Louise, Tanner is forced on the run when Louise runs in with a bag of money, claiming they must leave town at all costs.
According to Oakley, one of her biggest inspirations for the book stemmed from one of her favorite movies, "Thelma and Louise," from which the book title and genre are inspired. "I've always loved the road trip genre," said Oakley. "It's fun. It's an adventure, and I've always wanted to write one, so that became an inspiration for me."
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Another inspiration for the best-selling artist was her grandmother, Marian Oakley, who died at 92 while suffering from late-onset Parkinson's. Before this, Oakley and her grandmother used to go on many road trips together, and their close personal relationship and these experiences with her helped shape the idea of the book's premise.
"Parkinson's is a pretty tough disease in its own right, but when it's coupled with the medications that doctors put you on to kind of deal with the symptoms, it can create some pretty vivid hallucinations and dreams," said Oakley.
"It's very difficult for the person to realize what's real and what's not. So my grandmother started saying some pretty alarming things on the phone, like how she once mentioned that she thought my aunt was in jail for murdering somebody. So the wheels in my brain started turning, and I thought, 'What if my grandmother, who had this really amazing life in her own right, had this other secret life that none of us knew about, and it was just starting to come out at the end of her life.'"
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The book promises to be a fun intergenerational story between an 84-year-old woman and a 21-year-old girl discovering a blossoming friendship. "What's really most important to me is that people kind of maybe look at the older people in their lives," said Oakley. "Be it a great aunt, a grandmother, a neighbor, and really maybe see them for who they are and cherish those relationships."
Oakley still has roots in Savannah. Her parents have owned a house for the past 20 years, and she often vacations with them when she has the opportunity. "I love River Street," said Collen. "My kids love the Savannah Candy Kitchen; we always have to make a stop there. I also love the food in Savannah; I can't say I've ever been to a bad restaurant in the area, and I also love how close it is to the beach."
Oakley has had a lot of experience with writing even before officially becoming an author. Starting as a freelance journalist for many years, Oakley began to grow her writing abilities during her off hours. Primarily researching health articles allowed her to find little tidbits of information that helped form ideas for stories she would come up with. "Each one of my books are kind of these outlandish storylines that seem really unbelievable, and I love the challenge of taking an outlandish idea and grounding it in reality, grounding it and science, grounding it and research and making it believable for the reader."
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"The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise" is Oakley's fifth book. Her prior works — "Love Note," "You Were There Too," "Before I Go," "Close Enough to the Touch," and "The Invisible Husband of Frick Island" — can all be ordered on Amazon. Currently, she's working on her sixth book.
While not many details were shared, the book plans presently on being a dark comedy dealing with climate change, eco-terrorism, and marriage. This book takes a lot of inspiration from the post-apocalyptic genre and will be filled with dark humor and dry wit.
Grab a copy of Oakley's book at Savannah booksellers and at her website, colleenoakley.com.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Colleen Oakley on new book, The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise
