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| Gail Kittleson |
Around New Year’s, we often consider our purpose. Samuel Clemens
tried his hand at typesetting, riverboat piloting, soldiering, and silver
mining before having his first story published. I wonder how the writer we know
as Mark Twain would specify his purpose—to entertain ... to teach a moral ...
to change the world? His iconic characters, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and Jim, did
all three.
Considering the body of his work, I’d vote for the latter. Twain
observed the ills and evils of his tumultuous times, and through gradual
alteration, contributed to altering them. Ernest Hemingway said that “all
modern American literature” arose from Huck
Finn, published in January, 1885 and called the great American novel.
Decades later, To Kill A
Mockingbird revealed the depth of bigotry still active in the South, once
again through a child’s eyes. In the same way, The Book Thief and Five
Quarters of an Orange strip bare the vagaries of war.
Does this childhood perspective subtly open readers to the
truth? I don’t know, but those last two books held me spellbound, as did To Kill A Mockingbird.
I have yet to adapt this principle in a novel, but the children
I include make a lot of difference to the main character. Dottie, the heroine
of In This Together, loves
children—long after her own left home, she volunteers with the wee tots at her
church. Never one to mind cleaning up messes, she works the remnants of
chocolate cake from an adorable little guy’s pocket before his mom comes to
pick him up.
Down on her hands and knees after everyone else leaves,
scrubbing up bits of chocolate from cold cement and crackly old 1946 linoleum,
Dottie longs to meet her two sweet grandbabies, far away in California, and
mourns her only son Bill, who died in the North Africa campaign.
Dottie, who rarely allows her emotions to surface, gives in to
an avalanche of grief after her time with these children. But down on the
freezing floor, she still looks up. And so does Al, the lonely widower next
door who watches her walk to work each morning and trudge home at night. He
secretly hopes someday she’ll give him a second glance.
It took Samuel Clemons a while to realize his gift of story. Now
that I’m focusing on story too, am I
out to entertain, teach, or change the world with my first novel? How do I
expect this post-World War II tale to affect readers? For starters, I’d like
them to see Dottie Kyle as a friend and cheer her on as she faces down some
stubborn, entrenched fears. We all must do that, and to think Dottie might
encourage somebody on their journey makes my day.
****
After
losing her only son to World War II and her husband soon after, Dottie Kyle
takes a job at a local boarding house. Her daughter Cora moved to California
straight out of high school to work for the war effort, married a sailor and
settled down in the Golden State—another loss.
Dottie
contributes to her rural Iowa post-war world by cooking and cleaning,
volunteering at her church, and tending her garden. But when troubles arise in Cora’s
third pregnancy, Dottie longs to help Cora and meet those two grandbabies out
in California. However, old fears prohibit her from making that arduous,
cross-country train journey.
At the boarding
house, complications arise that force Dottie to speak up for what’s right, and
as her confidence grows, so does the unexpected interest of the widower next
door. Nary a reason to blush here, but plenty of opportunity to cheer Dottie on
to victory!
Purchase
links:
Heroines that Dare to Bloom parallels
Gail’s long journey to blooming as a writer. She and her husband enjoy
gardening and grandchildren in Northern Iowa, and she facilitates writing
workshops and women’s retreats.
WhiteFire
Publishing released her memoir, Catching
Up With Daylight in 2013, and her debut women’s historical fiction, In This Together (Wild Rose Press/Vintage
Imprint) released in November. She also contributed to the Little Cab Press
2015 Christmas Anthology https://www.facebook.com/LittleCABpress
Please
feel free to contact Gail—meeting new reading friends is the meringue on her
pie, as Dottie would say!
Contact Links:
