Novel Verite

Once I had an idea for a book, my first novel, and I began to write it. It got high marks in a novel contest, and praise from readers.

But something stopped me from finishing, and that was my conscience.

You see, as the result of a chance conversation, I had figured out how to commit a crime. I learned from a nurse about the many-pocketed “disaster aprons” that hospital workers used to evacuate newborns. (That was before the invention of tracking devices and door alarms.) My fictional criminal used them to kidnap children – and halfway through writing the book, I realized I didn’t want to teach anyone how to do that.

I never finished that book because I didn’t want life to imitate my art.

But sometimes life imitates our art in a way that is far beyond our ability to control – or even predict.

My newest book, Discovering the City of Sodom, is being printed right now. Co-written with an archaeologist named Dr. Steven Collins, the book asserts that the “sin city” of the Bible was indeed a real place, and according to Dr. C., it was destroyed by an airburst of an asteroid that exploded with atomic-bomb force right over ancient Israel.

In other words, the bigger, badder brother of what exploded over Russia a few days ago.

(A fellow author, upon hearing about the recent airburst, said God was giving us pre-pub buzz. And I say, Thank You!)

I’d like to know from my fellow NovelMatters ladies, who have written on compelling and often controversial subjects and heart-wrenching scenarios, if and when and how did life imitate the art of your books? And how did that make you feel?

Thank goodness I can say life has not imitated my art, because I've discovered over the years I tend to write about the disappearance/death of little girls. I'm sure there's a psychologist or two out there who would love to get me in a counseling session. I'm forcing myself not to go there with that subject matter again, but I do have two novels that touch on that in one way or another. Once they're published, no more. But I have tried to psycho-analyze myself  regarding that. I've lost two babies and an identical twin sister, so maybe that's where it comes from. Because of that I pray life never imitates my art. The one story where my art imitated life was Every Good & Perfect Gift, which dealt with early onset Alzheimer's. I knew nothing about eoa until a close friend was diagnosed at the age of 41. She and I were only 3 months apart in age. Since Evie's death, I've had another close friend who died of eoa. What are the chances?

Like Sharon, my art more imitates life than the other way around. Both of my novels are about missing family members - the first about a missing mother. Strangely, while I wrote that first one, I never considered that my father, who dropped out of my life when I was seven, might have anything to do with the subject matter. When I did realize, after the book was scheduled for publication, I felt exposed, like I'd just written down all my secrets and handed them to the unknown public. It's turned out to be a blessing. The unknown public has been very kind, and of course, there were many who responded because I touched on their own secrets. I've found to my surprise and wonder that, once readers and authors touch under the table and say, "me too," then exposure turns to compassion. God's mysterious ways.

All of my books in some way deal with my fears and the questions that dog me. My sons say it's more than a little weird to see bits and pieces of our lives in my books. And my mother once asked if she was the mother in The Queen of Sleepy Eye. My answer? Heaven's no, Ma! My soon-to-be-released book does harvest the essence of our family history. My mother was left to tend to her 6 brothers and sisters after her parents had been deemed unfit. She was only 16, so the state stepped in and adopted out most of her siblings. Although several of my aunts and uncles have passed on, we are a family, all thanks to my mother's efforts to keep the tie that binds cinched tight. I love her for that. My main character bears her middle name, Lucy, and fights to keep her family together after the death of her parents, even when the mercy of God seems more of a hindrance than a help. While the story isn't my family's story, it's very personal.


Like Patti, my kids have also said it's a little weird to see pieces of their lives in print. It's inevitable that we use life as we see it. I think losing 3 babies to miscarriage has influenced my writing until now, although I didn't lose them in the way as my Raising Rain protagonist.  Writing about any kind of loss can be very therapeutic, if you're willing to be transparent or are just really, really good at disguise.



I'm late to the table as usual. Life imitating art. While I've only one novel published, and one non-fiction, I've written several more novels, and all of them are, in various ways, personal. Not playing coy, really, but those personal bits tucked between the words are tucked there because that is how I can talk about them, veiled inside a larger story that is not my life story. Writing fiction is the only way I can share the dark alleys. In the end, I suppose all novelists end up writing their emotional biographies, their souls scattered across the shelves.