Photo courtesy Rachel McRady
Journalist Rachel McRady wasn’t looking to write a book about a family broken by a loved one’s struggle with dementia. Faced with her own grandfather’s ups and downs as he transitioned into an unrecognizable person due to the condition, however, she felt compelled to write a fictional short story on the subject. That six-page manuscript about a 6-year-old girl named Gracie Lynn who is trying to understand what’s happening to her grandfather turned into “Sun Seekers,” McRady’s debut novel.
“The whole premise of the book is: Gracie has this idea, and she breaks her grandfather out of his nursing home, and they chase the sun. [The novel’s title also corresponds] with the idea of writing this book as my own therapy for my grief dealing with my grandfather’s diagnosis and illness and trying to find the light in the situation. To me, Gracie and her whole character, it’s about seeing the world with that childhood innocence that we as adults don’t have any longer,” McRady says. “One of the hardest things I had gone through was grappling with seeing someone you love so much slipping away. They’re not dead, they’re still there, but they’re not the person you remembered. And so, writing this was a way of dealing with that, but also a way of hopefully offering some lights for other people going through it.”
McRady grew up in Henrico County. A self-described voracious reader, her love for the written word led her to journalism and earning a degree from James Madison University. A former intern at Richmond magazine, she credits the gig with giving her the opportunity to publish her first formal articles. After relocating to New York, McRady entered the world of entertainment news, writing for Us Weekly and “Entertainment Tonight.” Enthralled with the notion of working abroad, she and her husband, Caleb, moved to London for several years, where McRady served as a correspondent for “Entertainment Tonight,” even covering the high-profile wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Four years ago, after the birth of their first daughter, Iona, they returned to Richmond to be closer to family. McRady continues to work remotely for the broadcast newsmagazine as an assignment editor and senior writer.
Image courtesy Alcove Press
Publishing “Sun Seekers” was no easy task. McRady says the first manuscript took about six months to write, but it took seven years to finally receive a “yes” from a publisher. She received ample positive feedback, but many publishers questioned its focus on a 6-year-old. Because the book is adult fiction, they questioned whether readers would be receptive to the perspective of someone so young. McRady made several rewrites to her manuscript over the years, but changing Gracie’s role would have been a dealbreaker, she says. She considered self-publishing and even giving up on the project, but her agent, Liza Fleissig, and editor, Jess Verdi, supported her vision and worked to get the manuscript published.
The title of McRady’s novel is also a reference to sundown syndrome, which the Alzheimer’s Association describes as dementia-related behavioral conditions including agitation, hallucination and disorientation that begin around sunset. It’s something she experienced with her grandfather, John Dozier. During her time in London, she can recall one phone call in particular that resulted in him saying hurtful things. Although she knew the situation was caused by his condition, she wondered how she would have reacted if it had happened when she was a child, spurring the idea for the book.
Her grandfather died in 2017, just after McRady had finished her first full manuscript. She says she was able to share it with him, letting him know it was based on him. “He was very touched by that,” she says. “It meant a lot to me.”
McRady hopes those supporting loved ones with dementia will read her novel and come away feeling that they are not alone. “I think that caretaking and even just caring about and advocating for a loved one who is going through these things is so isolating in so many ways,” she says. “One of my favorite early reviews I received is from someone who worked in care communities, and [they] said, ‘This book is really spot on with the impact dementia has on the whole family.’ That meant quite a bit to me because that’s what I wanted to come out of it, was to really show all sides to it, so not just the person suffering with the disease but the person who is their main advocate, the person who loves them and remembers how things were in a better time.”
“Sun Seekers” is available Jan. 9 from Alcove Press. Rachel McRady will be at Book People on Jan. 23 for a launch party and at Fountain Bookstore for an author event (date to be announced).
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