The other seed was also connected to my upbringing since I grew up in low-income, urban-core Baltimore. In many ways, that idea of redemption began to define the rest of the book. So, Ruth Anne’s journey running from her estranged husband out of terror was the truest thing in the book, and it was my chance to write a redemption song for my mother. She was a single mother, and she got herself into a really precarious domestic situation with her second husband. The first was the character of Ruth Anne who is definitely inspired by my mother. How did the idea for this novel start growing? Jeffra spoke with us about their novel’s compassionate approach to Baltimore’s story, the future of LGBTQ+ publishing, and the importance of literature in today’s world.

In American Gospel Jeffra imagines a low-income Baltimore neighborhood targeted for redevelopment into a Baltimore-themed amusement park called “Crabtown.” In the midst of this impending gentrification, the novel follows three affected characters-Ruth Anne, a single mother on the run from an abusive ex-husband, her gay teenage son, Peter, and Brother Thomas, a priest-in-training at a local Catholic high school-as they navigate their future in this changing city. Miah Jeffra, a lecturer in SCU’s English Department, hopes their latest novel American Gospel can better illustrate the complex effects of gentrification on this troubled city. However, for many, Baltimore exists in the public consciousness as a city on the brink, thanks to persistent headlines about crime, corruption, segregation, and poverty.īut even as lower-income neighborhoods are left behind to decay, in the last decade, real estate developers have flocked to this neglected city, promising to replace shuttered, sagging homes with shops, housing, and offices-likely to bring in millions of dollars of revenue and thousands of jobs-all while the people of these neighborhoods are quietly washed away by the rising tides. Today, this port city off the Chesapeake Bay is home to a half-million citizens, and it boasts a rich history spanning hundreds, even thousands of years.

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