"Beulah Land" written by Krista McGruder

Krista McGruder, a Neosho High School graduate now living in New York City, is touring to promote her first book, "Beulah Land." Several of the short stories are set in the local area and reflect her love of rural living. Globe/Jeff WellsGlobe/Jeff Wells

Finding comfort in a latte in a Joplin coffee shop on Monday afternoon, Krista McGruder doesn’t initially seem like someone who holds tractors in high regard.

The New York City-based author had just driven halfway across the country with her own food in tow because the vegetarian can’t find much she can eat at roadside fast-food joints and rest stops.
Monday evening’s task involved hunting down high-quality, gourmet Parmesan cheese after having struck out earlier in the day at a mainstream grocery store.

But in between sips of her espresso drink, the 1992 Neosho High School graduate glowed when talking about the people and the land of her native Southwest Missouri.

Many of the short stories in her first book, “Beulah Land,” published by Toby Press in October 2003, take place in and around the area where she was born and raised. Though her stories are set “everywhere in this area but nowhere in particular,” locals will recognize names like Granby, Table Rock Lake and Eagle Rock, and references to Eureka Springs, Ark.

Her next work, a novel scheduled for completion in the next few weeks, tells the story of a tractor salesman in a mythical Oklahoma town somewhere between Seneca and Tulsa.

“I love the landscape; it’s been wonderful. I really enjoyed growing up in this area,” McGruder said. “Maybe when I was 17, I would have told you differently.”

It was at that age that McGruder, a former member of Neosho’s debate team and cheerleading squad, headed east to Yale University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree. After graduation, she made a beeline for the Big Apple, where she worked for various financial firms, including powerhouse Lehman Brothers.

She always considered herself a writer, though never a literary author, filling up stacks of diaries with stories, ideas that would have remained hidden behind their covers had it not been for her boyfriend. He encouraged McGruder to pursue her art, supporting her financially and emotionally, allowing her to leave her job late last spring to devote all her time and energy to writing. Her book’s dedication reads, “Because of Tiger John Miller.”

The slim, short-haired author often returns to Missouri to spend the summer at her parents’ farm in Eagle Rock. This week, she made the trek across the country with her two English bulldogs for a book reading and signing at Crowder College on Wednesday.

She plans to stay in New York after receiving her master’s degree from New School University in May, but she clearly loves this part of the country, and distinctly un-New York phrases like “bless your heart” still sprinkle her speech.

Even seeing above-ground electrical wires while driving down Seventh Street in Joplin (New York City’s power lines are buried below ground) caught her eye on Monday, she said, and she plans to use them in her future writing.

Rural America is a foreign world for a fair number of people traveling in New York’s literary circles, where a tackle box, a fairly common element of Southwest Missouri life, is an unknown entity among some of her fellow writers.

“Most people wouldn’t know what spinner bait is if it hit them in the face,” she said with a laugh. “The lingo of rural people, hunting and fishing ... it makes for great stories,” she added, careful to point out that she doesn’t favor pastimes that place animals at the end of a hook or a barrel.

She’s fascinated with everyday elements of rural life, and McGruder’s grin widens as she talks about barns, wells, farming, stone walls and riding on a tractor as a child with her grandfather.
While some critics have said a few of her characters border on being caricatures, they ring true to local life, including boaters lost on Table Rock Lake and a teenager left alone in his family’s mobile home after his father is arrested on drug charges.

McGruder’s stories aren’t warm and fuzzy. Instead, they paint pictures of characters struggling with their surroundings, with others and with themselves. Other tales of people in Brooklyn and Southern California tell of personal suffering. McGruder, who said she avoids reading popular fiction, feels there’s a call for warmth and compassion.

“There’s a great call for writers to uplift the human spirit, and there’s a place for that,” she said. “But it’s great to read things that don’t adhere to that mode of writing. Thematically, it’s tough to sell.”
But sell she’ll try.

Over the next few months, McGruder will appear at book readings and signings at bookstores and festivals in Charlottesville, Va., Miami, Fla., Oxford, Miss., and southern Kentucky to promote “Beulah Land.”

Though McGruder and her boyfriend recently bought a home in New York’s trendy Flatiron District, she said she still looks forward to returning to Southwest Missouri to visit family and friends, and to show her East Coast friends the beauty of her home.

“This is a place I come back to for ... a breath of fresh air, literally and figuratively,” she said.