Finding the Pure Heart

An interview with Pineville Trace author Wes Blake.

Wes Blake’s short novel about a man who was a former revival preacher connects the character’s problems to those that any reader can relate to. In Pineville Trace, Frank Russet is a prison escapee trying to restart his life—and rediscover the meaning of life. 

“I wanted the book to tell a linear story about Frank Russet as he walks away from his former life,” says Wes Blake in a phone interview. “He walks away from this minimum security prison with a stray cat named Buffalo.”

Frank escapes prison with said cat Buffalo, who he believes was an actual buffalo in its past life. Frank trusts Buffalo to lead him to his new dream cabin in Canada. Before he sets out on his journey, Frank decides to buy a car. At the car dealership, Frank asks the salesman if he feels empty inside with the job he is doing. Frank asks this question because when he was working as a revival preacher he felt this way. 

“I think that whether you are a writer or any sort of art form you practice, I think there is always a part of yourself in the character,” says Blake. “The big emphasis on this story was to write about what obsesses you.”

Throughout Frank’s journey, Blake illustrates the different settings that Frank encounters. He focuses on the details in nature and even dedicates a passage to Frank admiring the Canadian climate through the windows in his cabin. 

“The main reason I chose Canada as a place for Frank to go was because of that escape,” explains Blake. “I think that he had the desire to be in a remote place. The remoteness of Canada is so amazing. It’s such an open space.”

Blake dives into Frank’s past to give the reader a better understanding of how his character thinks. Frank often remembers when his dad would take him to watch Houdini. He recalls Houdini escaping from handcuffs and compares Houdini to himself escaping from prison.

Frank told Buffalo the reason she chased birds was because those birds had been her enemies when she was a bird. And circling back to their next life again, he told her that he would be a white pine. So that she would recognize him. And know his pine-needle scent. He told her that he thought she would be a dove. Because doves are gray like her. And fluffy. And chubby. And so he would recognize her, too.“ – Pineville Trace

After many grueling months in the cold weather, Buffalo gets old and dies. Frank buries her and decides to head back home. There, Frank sees his brother Henry dying. His brother had a large dent in his head, and their mother claimed that Frank caused the injury, but neither of the brothers remembered it that way.

“Frank woke up in the driver seat of the LeSabre, in the darkness of the valley, with the image of his dying brother. The image of his damaged, bald head. It was awful,” Blake writes.

Frank is upset and decides to head to Mexico for a brief amount of time. He eventually goes back to Canada but first revisits the radio tower where he and his brother worked. Afterward, Frank arrives back in Canada and finds where he buried Buffalo. There, he decides to rest. 

“Frank Russet seeks out these isolated places that are in the middle of the wilderness. He’s trying to get back to some part of himself where he’s lost himself along the road to success. He’s trying to find the pure heart to himself,” says Blake.

Blake plans on publishing a book in the near future about Frank and his brother Henry and their rise to success that would take place before Pineville Trace. To find out more information about his books, visit his website.