I am honored to have my work the subject of Septembers Starry Starry Kite, an inspiring blog published by Linda Castronova . This month’s issue is dedicated to the inspirational Kathryn Holzman, a writer who looks for and finds stories everywhere: on her morning walks, in her news feed, eavesdropping in restaurants, and in her own family history.
I met Kathryn in my first writing group and was instantly impressed by her work ethic and her dedication to the craft of writing. Like me, she started writing more seriously after retirement. In just a few years she has published three novels and has almost completed her fourth! Read on for samples from her published novels. Kathryn says, “The excerpts below, of course, are mine, but each was inspired by the spirits of those who came before me. This is the magic of fiction, its ability to change form, talk with the dead, and wrestle with inconsistencies. As an author, I am honored to listen to the voices that came before me, and, if I am lucky, share them with you, the reader.” We are lucky, indeed, to read the remarkable stories inspired by Kathryn’s family history. Enjoy! Share Starry Starry Kite The Cost of Electricity (2023) Kathryn introduces the novel: I first discovered Lulu, the protagonist “The Cost of Electricity”, in a cardboard box maintained by the University of Oregon’s special collections. During a summer vacation/research trip, the librarian retrieved three boxes of my family history from the University’s collection in the library’s basement. One contained material about geologist Thomas Condon, my great-great-grandfather, the first State Geologist in Oregon. The second contained material on Justice Robert Sharpe Bean, my great grandfather, and the 16th Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. The third box, simply labeled “The Bean Family,” contained information about ancestors who were early students at the University. Although I had been raised on stories about the two illustrious men above, I was not there to learn more about their well-documented lives. Instead, I was pursuing a mystery. According to family lore, my grandfather, Condon Roy Bean, had mysteriously divorced in the early 1900s. At the time of his death, we knew nothing about this marriage, not even his first wife’s name. My mother hinted at this secret but didn’t know the details. All she could tell me was that he had divorced his first wife long before marrying my grandmother. After my father’s death, I discovered the strong willed and accomplished woman who was my grandfather’s first wife. Virginia “Lulu” Cleaver became the protagonist of my second novel, set in Oregon in the first decade of the 1900s. In this excerpt, Lulu declares her independence, wrapping strait-laced Al around her little finger in an effort to seduce him. “I refuse to let my family history define me,” Lulu declared. “Our parents’ lives are so public, especially here at the university. How many times have I heard that your father was a member of the first graduating class?” Al hesitated at the corner, shielding her from the splashing mud of passing carriages. “We fought to keep the university open.” Al imitated his father, parroting the opening line of the story that Judge Bartlett recounted at every assembly. Lulu laughed, surprised at the boy’s audacity. “I understand. They’re proud of their progress. But what does that have to do with us?” “It’s refreshing to talk with a woman who is not afraid to voice her opinions.” “Contrary to what my parents think, I intend to use my education to prepare for a career, not simply to latch onto a husband. I’m going to write for a real magazine one day. Women have careers as well as men, you know.” Instead of arguing, Al nodded in agreement. “I imagine you will find a way.” Granted (2022) Kathryn introduces the novel: Further back in my genealogy, I discovered five generations of Baptist ministers in Nova Scotia. The first of these emigrated from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, recruited to replace Acadians who had been expelled from Nova Scotia after the French Indian wars. In researching Nova Scotia, I discovered a fascinating, horrifying history of colonization. My ancestor, much lauded in the writings of his time, raised a large family and became a leader in his community. In my third novel, I tackle his legacy. How does one capture the “truth” of one’s origins, especially in light of damage done? After struggling with this dilemma, I chose two voices for this novel. Lucy, the high-spirited daughter of the settler (with whom I could identify) and Meuse, a young Mi’kmaw who befriends her. In the following excerpt, the Parker family travels to the Gasperaux River for their father’s Baptism by immersion, unaware that they are being stalked my Meuse, a Mi’kmaq bent on revenge. Lucy: I held on to my brother William, ahead of me in the saddle, for dear life. A thick woolen blanket padded the horse’s bony back, but not nearly enough. Ahead of us, a convoy of parishioners, adults in the lead and children in the rear, followed a narrow path along the Gasperaux River as it snaked toward the Bay of Fundy, its water as red as bricks. By the time we arrived at the beach, my legs were like those of a newborn calf, my blood curdled, and my bottom surely bruised as blue as a berry. I slid off the horse, only to have my knees buckle beneath me. “Lucy,” William said, “you clumsy girl. He offered me his hand, but the other children laughed. We were here to witness my father’s baptism, but I, his sinful daughter, had landed in the sand face-first. Meuse: Amen. Even Meuse recognized that word. He had learned it in the French church. It often echoed in the Acadian mission his family once attended but now stood in ruins. But these people were not French. And they were not Catholic. They were New Englanders who had recently resettled in the Kespukwik Valley. They were not his friends. Meuse stalked the men along the dirt path that paralleled the river, hiding behind the reeds, where the congregation could neither see nor hear him. Their horses pranced, mirroring their riders’ excitement. Their voices echoed through the pines, drowning out the birds’ twilight chorus. Meuse proceeded unnoticed. Although he did not understand English, he could spot Elders when he saw them. He recognized the respect the short man wearing robes showed the taller man whom he addressed as “Parker,” and that man’s easy acceptance of the crowd’s attention. The boy concluded the congregants had gathered this day in recognition of Parker’s high status in their tribe. Real Estate (2020) Kathryn introduces the novel: Real Estate was inspired by my childhood in California’s Santa Clara Valley, which transformed in a very short period from an agricultural valley filled with apricot orchards to what is now known as Silicon Valley. The protagonist’s next-door neighbors are loosely modeled after my family. The older brother, a stand-in for Steve Wozniak, was inspired by my own brother, a science nerd who competed with Steve in high school science fairs. When Air Force pilot Joe Jackson moves his family to the Santa Clara Valley during the turbulent sixties, Harriet, her father’s eyes and ears, is drawn to next door neighbor, Bobby, aspiring circus performer and math whiz. In the following excerpt, Bobby, the future computer maven tries to fit in with the neighborhood boys. They were waiting for a magic trick. They were asking him to be a friend. With clammy hands, he set down Superman and walked towards the counter, convinced that his pounding heart could be heard all the way to the back of the store where Artie was filling a prescription. He looked down at the bags of M&M's; he tasted chocolate melting on his tongue, felt the crisp crunch of the sugar coating even though it was only ten o'clock in the morning, too early in the day for any good boy to be eating chocolate. He was so tired of his mother's rules. Looking once more to the back of the store, he grabbed the bag of candy and prepared to scurry back to the gang watching him with obvious amusement. "Boy," a man's voice bellowed, "what do you think you are doing?" Bobby froze. His so-called friends ran from the store, giggling and jostling one another as they grabbed their bikes, leaving Bobby standing alone, the bag of candy in his hand. True story. Sorry, John, for outing you. About Kathryn HolzmanRaised in Seattle and the Santa Clara Valley of California, Kathryn Holzman left the west coast of the US seeking adventure in the Big Apple where she met her husband at a poetry reading. After attending Stanford University and NYU, she became a health care administrator and worked with public inebriates, dentists, urologists, and cardiologists. When the right side of her brain rebelled against endless databases and balance sheets, she moved to New England with her husband where they both flourished in the lush beauty of Vermont and the creative communities of Massachusetts. Her short fiction has appeared in over twenty online literary magazines and print anthologies. She is the author of three novels, THE COST OF ELECTRICITY (2023), GRANTED (2022), and REAL ESTATE (2020), as well as two collections of short fiction, MIGRATIONS and FLATLANDERS. She received the Grand Prize in the 2020 Eyelands International Short Story Contest for The Long Lost Bottom, published by Strange Days Books in October 2020. Learn more about her work at kathrynholzman.com. Interview with Novelist Kathryn Holzman LC: When did you start writing and what inspired you? KH: In fourth grade, I wrote a poem about sand dunes, and my teacher accused me of plagiarizing. I was taken aback, but a bit flattered. This was the first time I learned writing is about a lot more than inspiration. LC: Can you describe how you grew into the identity of a writer? KH: Being a writer has always been my secret identity. I hid it under a variety of costumes, mother, businesswoman, woman-who-longed-to-be-a-hermit. But until I retired from my day job, I was never able to give writing priority. With more time on my hands, I started polishing my short stories and was elated when a few of these were published. Then, my sister-in-law told me about Nanowrimo. Writing 50,000 words in the month of November gave me momentum. All three of my novels started as Nanowrimo manuscripts. With the support of my Amherst writing group, and the Green Mountain Writers Conference, I polished each of these over the course of several years. I always aspired to be a writer. If you asked me as a young girl what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was always “an author.” When I moved to New York City in my twenties, I wrote poetry. In fact, I met my husband at a poetry reading he ran in Manhattan. Unfortunately, for many years, my career and family eclipsed my writing, though it always remained high on my “to-do” list. Now that I have the opportunity, I let writing be my lens. I participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) each November and have several historical novels in the works. I have a great writing group that encourages me to continue writing my short stories. LC: How has your writing changed over the years? KH: During my career, I took several stabs at short stories, but in retirement I raised the bar and extended several short stories to full novels. When my first novel, Real Estate, was accepted by a small press, that dream finally came true. Sadly, Propertius Press has since closed (under a dark cloud), but I will always be grateful for that first validation. My second novel was accepted by a hybrid press. However, after signing the contract, I realized that the fees required greatly exceeded any profit I might make. Besides, the well-known publisher still expected me to hire an editor and publicist. After some deliberation, I cancelled the contract and published both Granted and The Cost of Electricity, through my imprint, Picaflor Press. This allowed me to maintain control of the publishing process. Self-publishing allows me to focus on the joy of creation and self-expression. One more novel, a pandemic murder mystery, is still in the works, but recently I have re-focused on the creative process itself. A lens that has always enriched my life. This summer, I’ve dabbled in sketching, amazed at how a quickly drawn line can catch the essence of a person or thing, and one errant erasure can make it disappear. It’s amazing. LC: Who are some of your favorite poets/writers? KH: Barbara Kingsolver, Geraldine Brooks, Jennifer Egan. I like strong women and complicated stories. Genre fiction leaves me cold. LC: What are you reading these days? KH: This summer I read The Great Believers (about AIDS in Chicago in the 90s). It is beautifully written and devastating. Also, The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese (a multi-faceted depiction of 20th century India). I highly recommend Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes, which takes chances in a way many novels avoid. I’ve also been exploring magical realism in literature and film. LC: What’s the best advice someone has given you about writing? KH: I love Annie Lamott’s Bird by Bird and found Save the Cat a useful guide to outlining a book in progress. BUT, one of joys of writing AFTER my career rather than AS my career was the freedom not to follow the rules once I learned them. So, I rely on beta readers and editing apps to keep me on track, but I also let my characters take the wheel. It’s so much more fun that way. LC: What inspires your writing? KH: A good book. Generous people who exude compassion. Book clubs. I am an inveterate user of prompts, and a lurker (on the internet and in real life), always on the lookout for a good story. All writing starts with the author, their history, their emotions, but the best ascends to a higher plane, exploring our commonalities. As an author, I can be anyone. Why not try? In Granted, I introduced two characters, a Mi’kmaq Indian boy and a colonial child. Each spoke to me. While many of the best books I have read recently are products of the Own Voices movement, I would also like to see more dialog, an integration of what we have learned from the past with what we could be in the future. LC: What advice would you give to aspiring writers? KH: You shouldn’t listen to “should”s. Listen to those voices in your head. Let them speak. In my current Work in Progress, the protagonist survives the pandemic by talking to the photos of women on her wall. Or maybe that is me... LC: Do you prefer pen and paper or keyboard for drafting? KH: Keyboard. I edit as I write and any attempts to write on paper end up illegible mazes of scratch outs and arrows. LC: How do you know when a piece is finished? KH: With a novel, I don’t think one ever knows. There is always room for improvement. Arbitrarily, I’ve decided that once it is published, it’s done. But whenever I read my own work, I see places it could be improved so that could change. No rules, right? LC: How has being a writer influenced the way you see the world? KH: I love to see things through the writer’s lens. I walk down the street and pick up the seeds for a dozen stories. I read the news and imagine how the events of the day affect certain individuals. Every person is an inspiration.
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I'm thrilled that The Cost of Electricity has been included in this Booktrib listicle of fiction about strong women in the 20th century. Check out the link by clicking on the photo above. "This month in BookTrib, we are celebrating women’s fiction titles that showcase 20th Century Historical Fiction (1900 – 1989). We all stand on the shoulders of individuals from the past. Show us their triumphs and losses, their expectations and beliefs. Shine a light on the societal barriers they scrambled over on their journey to live and love as fully as possible." Thanks to the Womens Fiction Writers Association and Book Trib for the opportunity to highlight some extraordinary women and their stories. Our house in Belchertown had a half dozen overgrown peony bushes in the backyard. We moved in in April when they were first punching through the leaf litter, tender green shoots defying the lingering cold. Every day after that, they grew, visibly doubling in size daily. By late April, large buds formed among the expansive green leaves. April sprinkles goaded them on. Delicate pink petals peeked out, waiting for their moment in the sun. What a wonder when the flowers bloomed! They were enormous, whole bouquets on the end of delicate stalks. One day amazing, aromatic, showy. But then the inevitable torrential rain arrived. Unable to stand, they bowed down in defeat, covering the bed with squash-size blooms flattened in mud. Over the years, I learned to gather the buds before they bloomed. I often arrived at my summer house in Vermont with a vase full of incipient flowers. If I had cut them early enough, the blooms, when they opened, had only a few ants inside and would last for weeks in my front window, while we waited for Vermont to catch up with the Massachusetts spring. Such impractical flowers, those peonies, all show, hardy perennials capable of re-inventing themselves for decades, even a hundred years, but architecturally all wrong. Last year, we moved on, leaving that flower bed behind, but any day now, new owners will spot those eager shoots asserting themselves, buds forming with stubborn insistence, flowers opening, brilliant despite their vulnerability. Ah to be like them, survivors destined to fail but persistent to a fault, harbingers of a shot at brilliance that will never last long enough. Four years working on my novel. The thrill of discovering my protagonist. A year of research, in person and months on the internet, wandering through archives, reading literary magazines from the first decade of the 1900s, yearbooks, endless Googling. Then on to a charming developmental editor, sitting in front of the fire at the Lord Jeffrey Inn (since renamed) discussing my book, its flow, excesses, deficits. More rewrites. The next draft sent off to Beta readers, each a unique pair of eyes, startling different reactions and unique perspectives. Another rewrite. Grammar check after grammar check. Ready for publication? I blithely enter the maze of submitting queries. I track my letters to agents. Seventy percent remain unanswered. Thirty percent feel the novel “is not for them.” I try a few small publishers and receive one lovely rejection with constructive suggestions for revisions. In the meantime, I go through the novel one more time with my Novel Writing Group, 10 pages at a time. More revisions. More grammar checks. I join the Women’s’ Fiction Writing Association, where the hive mind discusses hybrid publishers (who partner with their authors) on popular forums. I submit to the publisher on this list with the best reputation, a track record of prize-winning authors, multiple recommendations. My book is accepted! I am ecstatic. The contract is in the (e)mail. I review it closely. The cost to the author is high, and the expectations overwhelming. The publisher recommends I have the book copy edited and suggests I use one of their editors (for an additional fee). Instead, through WFWA, I find a wonderful, thorough, and dedicated line editor. She edits the book one more time, and I email this final, clean copy to the publisher. I sign the contract. My book will be published (in two years). I start writing my next novel, another thrilling ride, more research, more protagonists who take the helm. Meanwhile, the cost of the hybrid publisher continues to niggle at me. So much money! I discuss my doubts with other writers, some of whom are doing a fine job of publishing their novels on their own. Some of them even break even on their expenses. After much deliberation, I ask to be let out of my contract with the hybrid publisher. They return my deposit. I dive into research on how to publish a book. Learn the ins and outs of Ingram Spark and Amazon. I upload my manuscript and set myself a deadline for coming up with a cover. After multiple attempts, I master the art of fitting my cover design into the templates provided on the Amazon and IS websites. My book passes their error checks, and I order proofs and pick a tentative publication date. In the meantime, I read study blogs on marketing (there are many). I attend on-line seminars and follow fellow writers on Facebook and Instagram. Finally, my baby is ready to be born. I have my author’s copies. I design my sales sheet and update my blog and review my mailing list. These, the “experts” assure me are crucial. I list my book for presale. I carefully compose an e-mail announcing my presale and publication dates. My husband proofreads it for typing errors. On a sunny Monday morning, when Spring and rebirth are in the air, I paste my draft into the body of my email and plug in my mailing list. Heart pounding, I press send. Fifteen minutes later, I receive an email from a writer I admire, admonishing me. My heart drops into my stomach. In my haste, I entered my recipient addresses on my book announcement into the “To” line, not as BCCs. This was not out of ignorance. I’ve used this list before, always hiding the recipients’ identity. But not this time. I have, the writer scolds me, given 143 people her private email. Please remove her from my mailing list. After all my work, I’ve made a mess of things. The best I can do is write an apology, send it to my list (using BCCs this time), and ask the recipients to delete my email and it recipients. I ask them to honor the other recipients’ privacy. But, of course, undoing a mistake is not that easy. Over the course of the next week, longtime writing group buddy asks me to clarify an email she has received from a Western Mass. Writer. Following the stream on her email, I discover the WMW has “replied all” to my entire mailing list, asking them to remove her from their contacts and expressing her disapproval of my irresponsible mass mailing. (No mention in any of this of my book, of course). Then I receive another email from my brother, the physicist, asking me to do whatever I can to stop the barrage of email he is receiving from a writer he does not know who is also releasing a new book. A book which is now being announced to my entire writing list. (Again, no mention of my book, a body abandoned on the battlefield.) This other writer assures me that in her “massive” sales campaign, she has using multiple mailing lists and this all is probably a coincidence. But, of course, none of her lists would include my brother, the retired physicist, so I question her creditability. “I am selling my book, not me,” I whine to my husband. The glimmer of creation is gone. My protagonist forgotten. And here’s the kicker. The writer with the massive sales campaign offers to send my book announcement out to her list. Hundred, maybe thousands, of eyes drawn to my book, my baby. Am I tempted? Would you be? Early in my writing journey, I attended a lecture by Anne Lamott, the beloved writing teacher. She warned new writers that writing was a blessing, but selling was like crack. Addictive, an emotional roller coaster that leaves one nauseous and inevitably disappointed. I haven’t ridden a roller coaster in years. Pregnancy irreparably ruined my balance. My stomach is just not strong enough. And yet here I am. A box of author’s copies in the mail, teasing me like a roll of amusement park tickets waiting to be spent. I first discovered Lulu, the protagonist of my upcoming novel “The Cost of Electricity”, in a cardboard box maintained by the University of Oregon’s special collections. During a summer vacation/research trip, the librarian retrieved three boxes of my family history from the University’s collection in the library’s basement. One contained material about geologist Thomas Condon, my great-great-grandfather, the first State Geologist in Oregon. The second contained material on Justice Robert Sharpe Bean, my great grandfather, and the 16th Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. The third box, simply labeled “The Bean Family,” contained information about ancestors who were early students at the University. Although I had been raised on stories about the two illustrious men above, I was not there to learn more about their well-documented lives. Instead, I was pursuing a mystery. According to family lore, my grandfather, Condon Roy Bean, had mysteriously divorced in the early 1900s. At the time of his death, we knew nothing about this marriage, not even his first wife’s name. A half hour into my search, I discovered the following announcement in a Sigma Nu fraternity newsletter. Condon Bean, Sigma Nu, and Miss Lulu Cleaver were married at the home of the bride’s grandmother in Baker City, Oregon, on Feb. 22nd. This wedding, together with several others of Gamma Zeta Chapter, was the culmination of a romance developed in the shady walks and winding streams of the University of Oregon. Miss Lulu Cleaver. I was on my way. The University of Oregon’s extensive digital collection includes all the yearbooks and literary magazines published since the University opened. I discovered Virginia “Lulu” Cleaver, a classmate of my grandfather and an instructor of English. How thrilled I was when Google uncovered her poems and short stories in literary magazines of the time! I spent so much time on the internet in her company that I believe Wikipedia added an article about her during the time I wrote the book. The Wikipedia entry is for Virginia Cleaver Bacon and does not acknowledge Lulu’s earlier marriage to my grandfather. Instead, it says that she married Ralph Bacon, another University of Oregon graduate and classmate. Lulu’s voice was loud and clear. Between the University publications, family lore, and Cleaver and Bacon’s published works, my novel wrote itself, leaving me to imagine the emotional journeys that accompanied the characters’ vivid and resonant lives. A few peripheral characters inserted themselves. Bacon’s premature death preceded Cleaver’s illustrious career as Oregon’s State Librarian. By the time my father came on the scene, my grandfather had re-married. The spunky daughter of a Norwegian fisherman, my beloved grandmother, was the story I was told. But I am delighted my characters insisted on filling in the blanks. What a wild ride it has been! Stay tuned for the cover reveal for “The Cost of Electricity” soon. The book will be published by Picaflor Press in May. Interested in reading an ARC? Contact me via the about page on this website. Happy New Year!
Lew and I had a lovely holiday stay at our cabin in Vermont. New England provided its usual spectrum of weather, from ice storms to 2.5 feet of snow, followed by torrential rain. But when the sun came out, we put on our crampons and enjoyed the winter landscape and then curled up in front of the wood stove with a bowl of soup made from the Christmas dinner leftovers. As the year ended, I’m happy to say my fall projects came to fruition. A hardcover version of GRANTED is now available on bookshop.org, Amazon, and, I just discovered, Walmart. There’s something so permanent about holding a hard copy, and it looks great on a bookshelf! Two years after publishing REAL ESTATE, my debut novel, with Propertius Press, my contract ended. I will forever be grateful to the publisher of Propertius for turning my manuscript into a “real” book. On January 17, Picaflor Press will release a second edition of this book. Check out the new cover! This book is already up on Bookshop.org. After the publication date, a Kindle version and a hardcover will be available. Now onto the new… My next novel, The Cost of Electricity, set in Oregon in the early 1900s, will be published on May 17. I’ll be sharing a cover release and pre-sale promotions in the spring. Finally, I met my 2022 Nanowrimo goal of completing a first draft of my fourth novel, a murder mystery set during the pandemic in which a New York lawyer tries to solve a Vermont murder with the help of J. K. Rowling, Frida Kahlo, and Melania Trump. Still tweaking a little here and there, but I will look for beta readers soon. I'll post a brief excerpt here soon. Let me know if you are interested. So that’s what I have been up to. How about you? Warmly, Kathryn It’s been a busy summer. Just as I was preparing to launch my second novel, GRANTED, we heard that the townhouse we had been waiting for had finally been completed. This meant leaving my beloved Vermont early this year, retrieving our belongings from storage, and boxing up our cats, Sassy and Spice, for a new adventure.
We love our new townhouse on Boston’s North Shore, and Spice has finally emerged from under the covers. I figure this is as good a time as any to share a short story I wrote about our move. I'd love to hear your feedback. Have you ever entrusted all your earthly belongings to strangers? Moving Day Facing the dilemma of which set of china to take, his mother’s or her’s, Pam decided to take it all. Who even uses china anymore? Jason asked. He had a point, but it wasn’t that simple. Her mother’s dishes had an elegant, delicate pattern. Pink rose buds framed by green leaves. His mother’s was like the woman herself, brash, on the cusp of gaudy. Gold flourishes and primary colors. But it was as much trouble to give the dishes away as to cart them along to the new house. The kids had no use for them, that was for sure. The china, not to mention the wooden box of silver utensils, had been so important to her mother. In those days, dinner parties were the norm. Appetizers on silver trays, crocheted tablecloths, three forks per setting--salad, main dish, dessert, two spoons. Butter knives. Her mother set the table with care, drawing pensively on her cigarette as she scrutinized the setting for omissions. By the time her father began shaking the cocktails, she and her brothers were shooed away to the family room for fear they would touch something, disturb with the immaculate presentation of drinks, dinner, dessert. (Baked Alaska!) Now Pam and her husband led the movers from room to room indicating what needed to be packed. Pam pointed to the sideboard where the china was and added that there was more in the secretary. This of course in addition, to the everyday dishes in the kitchen, and the pottery in the pantry. The three packers nodded an acknowledgement. N, a burly dark-skinned man, assigned the dining room, to Jose who, when Jason expressed interest in his accent, said he was from El Salvador. N and the third man, P something, would pack the kitchen, he said. The three men went out to the moving van to get a tower of collapsed boxes, Jason asked Pam where she thought the other two guys came from. Was that a hint of a French accent? Brazil, perhaps. Cape Verde, N. answered when asked directly. The three men fell into a smooth rhythm, putting together boxes, wrapping dishes in crinkly paper, packing each box meticulously, then taping it shut and labeling it with a black marker. Pam and Jason tried to stay out of their way but listened as the men chatted in a what must have been their common language, a simple Spanish that Pam found easy to follow. From time to time, one of the movers held up a chipped plate, a cracked glass. This? Pam supposed it was a question of liability. She told them to throw the pieces that were no longer useful. To pack those with minimal damage. When the moving company had estimated that it would take 24 hours (3 men, 8 hours each), to pack their belongings, Jason had said that sounded excessive. After all, they were hardly avid shoppers or hoarders. But after 40 years of marriage, things do add up. Perched on the arm of a sofa (which the movers would later disassemble in a facile, surprising way), Pam watched Jose work. El Salvador, he said, right? When she had been in college, she had travelled by bus from Mexico City, where she had been visiting a friend, with a classmate from El Salvador and his American girlfriend. Late one night as the bus whizzed along rutted roads, he had asked her ¿Qué horas son? but she had not understood him, accustomed to the textbook ¿Qué hora es? She wondered how Jose had come to live, and work, in Western Massachusetts. Had he gone through customs in Tijuana as she had that long ago summer? Or he had slipped across the Rio Grande, carrying his belongings on his back? Honestly, she didn’t care if he was legal or illegal. The man worked hard. The irony didn’t escape her. Rather, it made her uncomfortable. When he held up a cobalt glass ball that sat on a glass shelf in the corner cabinet, showing her a deep chip, she said, No, I guess we can throw that away. She wished she hadn’t left the shelves in her office for the men to pack. Her binders of unpublished manuscripts, the photograph albums she had inherited from her mother, sealed packages of printer paper. Cape Verde. Off the coast of Africa, Jason said when asked. They speak Spanish there? Jason googled this on his device. They sat in the living room, out of the way of the workers. Portuguese, he said, and a native form of Creole. Almost twice as many Cape Verdeans live abroad than in the country itself. A diaspora, he read. I never knew, she said. Pam watched N and P work. Had she ever met somebody from Cape Verde before? How strange to have these men, disassembling her home, drawer by drawer. As they sat on her office floor carefully jigsaw puzzling her possessions together in carefully curated boxes, she heard one say “profesora” and she wondered if they were speculating about who she and Jason, the owners of all this minutia, were. She wasn’t a teacher, of course, but then they probably didn’t realize she spoke Spanish. Part of her wanted to jump in and help them. The other part knew of course she would only disrupt their well-managed routine. The packing and move came in less than estimated, though more than Pam and Jason would ever have predicted. By the end of the next day, their belongings were stacked in in boxes against the walls of the moving truck. The rugs had been rolled and carted away. The pine plank floors were bare. The only reminder of their dozen plus years in the house were a half-dozen bags of garbage ready to be taken to the dump. Through it all, the moving men remained cheerful, polite, and respectful. It there were bigger issue here, and there clearly were, now was not the time to confront them. Jason offered the men the microwave since they wouldn’t need in their new townhouse. He made a point of tipping the men generously. (They had sold the house for considerably more than they paid for it, after all). Muchas gracias, Pam said, as N shifted the gears of the idling truck. Jose and the other guy smiled as the truck pulled out of the driveway with all their earthly possessions on board. Thanks to everybody who has already pre-ordered GRANTED and to those who have taken a sneak peak at the Kindle edition.
To hold you over until the August 1, release date, here is the third outtake of from an earlier draft of the book. In this version, Lucy and Meuse's stories are interspersed with the narrator's contemporary magical realism process that propels her creation. I debated long and hard before deciding which version to publish. I'd love some feedback! (Find Outakes #1 and #2 below). Outtake #3 The raven tells a story. Vermont 2021 The red 2:59 on the clock rolls to 3:00. I wake with a start, a nasty headache, and the sensation of having emerged from a vivid dream which I’ve already forgotten. My bedroom is teeming with amorphous shapes. I sniff the musk of animals prowling in the darkness. I hear them scuffling under my bed, small creatures searching for something to eat. The raven swoops down with a murderous cry and pecks at my pillow, pulling out the feathers. Only after he clasps a goose feather in his claw does he spread his black wings to fly to the closet door frame. In the void he leaves behind, Lucy appears. She curls up next to me in the bed. High on his perch, the raven opens his beak, and the feather floats to the floor. He speaks in a deep baritone which sounds vaguely familiar. “I have a story to tell you,” he says. “Wee-yig-yik-keseyook. A tale of old times.” “What does he want now?” Lucy asks. Her nose is running again. She wipes it on my sheets. I sigh with resignation. None of this is under my control. The raven has already begun. Long, long ago, two men lived together in one wigwam in the woods on the border of a beautiful lake. The name of one was Pulowech, the other Wejek. These two men were always together, and they lived by hunting the small creatures on the forest’s floor. I’ve just written down Gehne’s story of two young men wintering with their tribe on the shores of Kejimkujik Lake. Now I look up these strange words. Pulowech means partridge. Wejek is defined as a ruffed grouse. The creatures under the bed settle. Like us, they wait to hear what comes next. Lucy is silent for once, although she scrunches up her face like a discontented baby or an old lady, as if the raven’s request leaves an unpleasant taste in her mouth. One winter day Pulowech is walking along the shore, and he discovers three girls seated on the ice, arranging and braiding their hair. He sneaks up on them, but they are too spry for him and escape through a hole in the ice. Shortly after, he sees them again, and this time he is more cautious. He takes some fir boughs and conceals himself. Slowly, he creeps towards the girls. “Why is he telling this story?” Lucy asks. For weeks now, she’s lain in my bed talking about her mother and her aunt. Perhaps in telling his story, the raven is trying to engage her. But it soon becomes clear the story he tells is not about her, her mother, or her aunt. The girls hear footsteps and flee. In their haste, one of them drops the string with which she fastens her hair, her sakulobee. Pulowech picks it up and carries it home with him. There, he ties it to the place where he usually sits and sleeps in his wigwam. Lucy’s hand flies up to her hair. Like the girl in his story, she wears it in a long braid. She covers her hair with my flannel sheet. From beneath it, her words sound garbled. “You see,” she says. “He’s wants to change my story. Even if I refuse to listen, he will follow me and insist on being heard.” She shivers so hard the bed shakes. “It’s not your story he is telling,” I reassure her. “It is a traditional story his people pass from generation to generation,” Both stories, of course, are of interest to me. She peeks out from under the sheet. “You think?” I nod. The raven takes this as permission to begin speaking again. The girl who dropped her hair-string returns to search for it. When she sees it fastened to the wigwam, she remains there. In this way, Pulowech woos her, and she becomes his wife. “What is he talking about? She is too young to get married!” Lucy emerges from the sheet, indignant now, staring down the raven. Every bit the willful daughter of a righteous colonist, convinced this myth is somehow about her. How did she find her way into my bed to whisper in my ear and spout such nonsense? “He is not talking about you,” I say again, exasperated. “He is telling us the story of warriors from his tribe, boys like Meuse and Francis.” “You said the two men are named for birds.” “Yes, but they lived on the shore of a lake. They are always together.” I shush her, wanting the raven to continue so I can discern for myself whether there are parallels between his fable and the story I am writing. In Meuse’s story, Francis has just killed his first moose. Now he is free to marry his beloved. But in the raven’s story, there are robbers in the woods. Wejek goes away into the forest. When he returns. he is surprised to find the girl there in the wigwam the two men share. Pulowech tells his friend he must not sit there. Now that he has a wife, his friend must march over to the opposite side of the wigwam. “I’m bored,’ Lucy whines. “I’m here to tell MY story.” She unplaits her braid, and combs strands of her hair with her delicate fingers. If I didn’t know better, I would think she is baiting the raven, purposely drawing his attention to her resemblance to the girl in his tale. But no matter. With deft skill, he proceeds. The two men continue to hunt together. Pulowech tells the woman to keep the door closed, and to suffer no one to enter, not even her nearest relatives, not her brother or sister, father or mother. If she opens it to anyone, he warns her, they will carry her off or murder her. She promises obedience. When the two men depart, she carefully closes the door, fastens it, and lies down to rest. Lucy yawns. Having finished combing her hair, she re-ties her ponytail with a rubber band she’s stolen from my nightstand, casting a victorious glance at the raven. I pull her closer to me, alarmed, afraid of what comes next. Both their stories seem headed for disaster. |
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