We All Bleed: A Guest Post by S.A. Cosby
The bestselling author of Razorblade Tears and Blacktop Wasteland‘s latest book is out in paperback and we couldn’t be more thrilled. All the Sinners Bleed is a harrowing story of a chase for justice and the small town sheriff at the center of it all. Read on to discover the inspiration behind S.A. Cosby’s novel in his exclusive guest post.
Paperback $18.99
All the Sinners Bleed: A Novel
All the Sinners Bleed: A Novel
By S. A. Cosby
In Stock Online
Paperback $18.99
Former Mystery and Thriller Monthly Pick author Cosby (Blacktop Wasteland) returns with a killer new cat-and-mouse story. Non-stop action, a small town sheriff, a serial killer, and more secrets than you might imagine — Cosby puts his own spin on a classic story of good and evil.
Former Mystery and Thriller Monthly Pick author Cosby (Blacktop Wasteland) returns with a killer new cat-and-mouse story. Non-stop action, a small town sheriff, a serial killer, and more secrets than you might imagine — Cosby puts his own spin on a classic story of good and evil.
In the spring of 2020 I, like almost everyone in America, watched in horror as we saw George Floyd murdered, watched as he cried for his Mother while a man kneeled on the back of his neck until he died.
The pain and terror I felt lingered long after the images faded from our phones and television screens. I wondered, what could I do to speak out about the dehumanizing execution I had witnessed? I decided I would try and use my words to figure out how we got to a place where a man could be considered so undeserving of simple empathy that another man could kneel on his neck until he died.
I tried to write a story that could deconstruct the sociological and cultural mistakes and mendacity that brought us, all of us, to such a place.
And I failed.
I tried to find a way into such a story but every door I opened just lead me to rage and despair. No matter how I turned or twisted this stone in my heart I couldn’t crack it. I finally realized I was too close to this issue to give it the impartiality it deserved. I wasn’t writing a story, I was writing a polemic.
And so I took a step back and looked at the pieces of the story I had that did work. The parts that were waiting for a tale that was worthy of them.
I had a town that had known darkness.
I had a main character who had faced darkness both in himself and in the world.
I had supporting characters that would rally around that main character not just because he was the main character but because he inspired loyalty. Not from a place of fear but from his empathy and commitment to the truth.
One of the lines that survived from that first draft was:
The truth is always in season
As I was looking at the pieces that worked, I happened to have lunch with a friend of mine who was a former minister. As we talked I asked him what it was that finally caused him to leave the Church. I remember as he was taking a sip of his sweet tea he paused, looked away for a moment, then turned back and looked me in the eye.
“I became a minister because I believed it was my calling, and my calling was to help the least of us. No matter their mistakes. I was supposed to helping the least of us. When I realized I wasn’t, I left.”
That was the moment I realized who my main character Titus Crown was.
He was the one who helped the least of us. The poor, the lost, even the demented. He was a character who would lay down his life for what was right. He was also broken in places that the light can never find. And yet he would still fight. He would persist because in the end he is like a knight errant. A knight with damaged armor. A knight who has been tested.
That was when the title came to me as well.
We all bleed.
Saint and sinner alike.
S.A. Cosby.
