Anyone who writes a book called “Mothers, Tell Your Daughters” has to expect to be asked about her own mother, so let me get that conversation started here. In my novel “Once Upon a River,” the protagonist Margo Crane’s mother was a runaway. My mother, Susanna, was the opposite—she stuck around home. When everybody was running around and running away in the 1960s and ’70s, my mom had to be there to milk the cow twice a day.Susanna has lived a life full of challenges and personal trials, mostly brought on by her own strong and determined character. She raised a heap of kids by herself, her own kids and other people’s—the price she paid for always being there was that other people showed up for the free babysitting. Sometimes neighbors or cousins stayed the whole summer.
Mom was a horsewoman, and she became a horse trader. She also became the one the local farmers all called to help to deliver their difficult calves. She also has drunk plenty and smoked like a chimney for decades. She loves to spend time listening to music and laughing and telling and hearing funny stories. She wants literature to entertain and relieve her from stress, to smooth life’s rough edges.
This is why Susanna doesn’t love my writing. She’s very proud of me, but she wishes I’d write something funny, like slapstick or folkloric humor. Or she wishes I would write a series of murder mysteries in which a clever woman outwits criminals before the book’s end. Instead, I write about problems that have no solutions. My stories make a reader think more and worry more.Nonetheless, an awful lot of what I’ve learned about writing has come from her.
Mom was a horsewoman, and she became a horse trader. She also became the one the local farmers all called to help to deliver their difficult calves. She also has drunk plenty and smoked like a chimney for decades. She loves to spend time listening to music and laughing and telling and hearing funny stories. She wants literature to entertain and relieve her from stress, to smooth life’s rough edges.
This is why Susanna doesn’t love my writing. She’s very proud of me, but she wishes I’d write something funny, like slapstick or folkloric humor. Or she wishes I would write a series of murder mysteries in which a clever woman outwits criminals before the book’s end. Instead, I write about problems that have no solutions. My stories make a reader think more and worry more.Nonetheless, an awful lot of what I’ve learned about writing has come from her.
