Novel Inspiration
“As the women go, so goes the world.” My wonderful teachers, the Sisters of St. Joseph, Brentwood, L.I., N.Y.
I have long wanted to write a novel that would illustrate the challenges faced by some of the women in my family. This year a number of things came together to propel me forward. A few issues came out of this presidential election that struck a motivating cord. Closing in on the sixty-year mark, I think I finally have the prospective to do the job right. There’s also the ever-present reality that the future is shorter than ever before, and I had better seize the day or the chance will pass me by. National Novel Writing Month - November – came up at a synchronous moment; and, as a result, I completed a significant portion of first draft that month. I still have a lot of work to do finish the book, which requires research as well as writing. It is exciting and daunting all at once.
The novel-writing process seems somewhat different from others in which I’ve engaged. Some episodes just roll out. They seem to write themselves through me instead of by me. I knew going in exactly where the book would start and end. Those were the two pieces I wrote first. In some ways, that’s not so different from other writing experiences. What is different, is that I’m living with it 24/7. I sleep, eat, and drink And So Goes the World. It’s never far from the surface of my mind. It’s about living and reliving, finding purpose, meaning, and matter. It’s feeling ghosts present and active in my life; my mother and my grandmother, the nuns, my aunt, all of the various caretakers – and I had many – hanging over my shoulder, whispering in my ear, having their say. I thought I was going to have my say, but it turns out that it’s not just about me. The ghosts share my concerns but want to express things in their own fashion. They have their own agenda and goals. I never imagined they would be so assertive and often so very eloquent.
It all began with the good Sisters of St. Joseph who were my teachers at The Academy of St. Joseph at Brentwood, L.I., N.Y. and at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Brooklyn. They taught us that “As the women go, so goes the world.” In those days, it seemed to me to be about making sure we didn’t engage in “inappropriate” behaviors with boys, that there were no children before marriage, and that we worked to make sure that our families stayed together. Over time, that dictum has taken on a larger meaning for me. Whenever and wherever women are at risk in any way, so is the entire family, the entire society. Even the men are at risk. Maleness does not inoculate against the ramifications of having mothers, aunts, and grandmothers who lack physical and financial safety and economic and educational opportunity.
And So Goes the World is a true story. It is not a factual one. It is true to the experience, sensibility, and world view of my mother, and my grandmother, and me. Real events, incidents, and people in my life planted seeds in my heart for this fiction, but it is indeed fiction. It is not biography or autobiography, though it represents the geography of my soul and theirs.
I have chosen to do what writers are always encouraged to do: “Write what you know.” Consequently this book is set in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the San Francisco Bay area, the places I know best and distinctly American centers of cultural and ethnic diversity. The place in which I was fortunate enough to be born may not be American enough for Sarah Palin, but it is American enough for terrorists to bomb it’s twin towers and for 2,974 Americans to die there on September 11, 2001. You can walk the streets of any major city in New York or California – and some not so major – and see the beautiful rainbow of humanity, hear a cacophony of languages. I lived in one relatively small California city in which – according to the Cenus -63 languages were spoken in addition to English. In such places, you find a great, colorful, multi-cultural tapestry of religions, music, visual arts and culinary arts including delis, groceries, and restaurants serving up anything and everything but the bland, boring, and glutinous that has been traditional American fare. Such diversity is today’s America, a great strength. It is inclusive of white rural America and should not be dismissed by it.
I have chosen to draw on my American-Lebanese background, not just because that is my experience, but in reaction to increasing fear and defamation of the peoples of the Middle East. All of these people, Jewish, Christian, and Moslem are “peoples of the book,” that is people whose religions derive from the Hebrew Old Testament.They are all children of Abraham. This point may be neither here nor there. It could be that there will be no peace on earth until we sacrifice our tribal mentality, the implicit divisiveness of our religions and our nationalisms, and with them all the irrational judgments and justifications for xenophobia and murder.
Like Tessa, the major protagonist in this book, I had six uncles, all of whom spoke Arabic as a first language and fought for their country, the United State of America, in World War II. Pictures of them in American military uniform hang on the walls of my bedroom and were the icons of my childhood. Uncle Georgie in this book is the only true biography here. His once strong young body was returned to these shores filled with shrapnel. His once fine mind was shattered by the horrors he saw. Within a few years of his homecoming, he died from the injuries he sustained as an American soldier fighting in Europe. I don’t remember exactly how old he was and there’s no one for me to ask, but I would guess that he was probably not more than twenty-four or twenty-five when he died.
In an ideal world, mothers everywhere would stand together and stand firm, refusing to send their children to war. They would refuse to accept second-best for themselves and each other, knowing that that is key to securing a safe, healthy, creative, productive and prosperous life for their children. That is the underlying message of this novel, my tiny effort toward peace and wholeness for new generations. Perhaps added to the greater efforts of wiser and more resourceful souls, it will help. This is my hope and my gift to the generations that follow mine. There is one other thing that the good sisters taught me, you see: “I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And, what I can do, I ought to do. And what I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do.”
Visit Women’s International Perspective to learn about what women all over the world are doing for themselves and their families:
I have posted two excerpts from And So Goes the World:
http://brooklynmemoriesmostgreen.wordpress.com/2008/11/29/and-so-goes-the-world/
http://brooklynmemoriesmostgreen.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/second-excerpt-from-novel-in-progress/
Leave a Reply