As anyone who knows me, or my family, can well see, the situations and characters in my book resemble situations in my own life. So many books are written about rich people, and so few about poor people. So many books are written about unrealistic romanticized lives, taking place in five star hotels, private jets, limousines, champagne and caviar, and jet setting around the world.
I like good stuff, champagne and what not, but I wanted to write a book about how the little guy lives, how a poor hard working single mother struggles, and how two kids in one family can be afflicted with two serious hardships. I have RP and so do my kids, so there you have it, and I was and still am a single parent, even though my kids are grown. It was not easy. It really was not.
One of my kids, the older one, has some other health issues, and my younger one has asthma, which I hope he will one day grow out of. I am proud of my sons. They are fine young men, and the younger one is working now. He's a musician, and he lived in Peru for a while with his girlfriend. It was really an interesting experience, although I had concerns for him, due to money and issues like that.
As I have said before, many people live in ivory towers, and do not realize the struggles of every day people, paying rent, bills, looking for jobs, or even just surviving on disability, which is poverty really.
When kids grow up with a single parent who is poor and disabled, it is not easy. My ex husband payed child support, but he remarried and had more kids, and it was not easy for my sons to have him absent, although he did come around, take them out, and participate in their lives, to some degree, but much of the time when I needed his help, when things got out of hand, he told me there was nothing he could do, that he was there and we were here. He was helpful, very helpful to David financially, when David was in Peru, so I give him credit for that. Money can be a way for some people to show love, or at least that they care.
In my book, no one is exactly anyone particular, but Daniel, in my mind, when I write him, is similar to David.
Nicolas is a bit like Theodore, but is not him, and is the younger one. He only looks a little like Ted.
Charlie is a lot like Alan, my boyfriend who died, but in the book, Lizzy who is not me, chooses another guy, Jim, who is not Alan. I think I was processing, in some way, why I was dissatisfied with Alan, my Charlie, so to speak, trying to understand that better. I suppose I have a lot of guilt, where Alan is concerned, but guilt feelings do not disable me in any way, nor do I dwell on them. I finally found my shadow, as Carl Jung talks about, when I was thirty-nine years old, a crisis that brought me to my knees, and I hit bottom, so to speak, emotionally, but since I was forty-two, I worked out a lot that was dormant in myself.
Lizzy is a certain type of person. She has some similar experiences as me, but she is a different kind of woman, entirely. She is capable, hard working, strong, an excellent mother, determined, exhausted, weary, tired, opinionated, jaded, responsible, free thinking, not prissy, no nonsense.
Some of Daniel's friends are similar to David's friends, but aside from that the other characters are all real people, but no one I know, in real life. They represent people, in a sense, but only a very few characters are really like someone in my life, in terms of how they look, act, etc..
I guess I feel many people are unaware of the social problems in this country. I was just talking to a guy on facebook, this morning, who is a Libertarian, or very conservative Republican, and does not think the government should take care of it's people. I believe the opposite. Thanks to Bill Clinton, my kids grew up with health care through Medicaid. The rich just do not want to be taxed, and they live in fear of losing their money, God forbid, due to the poor, who they think need to take care of themselves. If that were the case, we could just let people die on the street like they do in India, no offense Indian friends, who read my blogs. A country needs a balance of socialism and capitalism. Compassionate Conservatism, as George W. talked about, believes that those who cannot take care of themselves should be. In fact Medicare Part D drug coverage came about under Bush.
I feel as an American patriot, having seen some of my sons' friends join the armed services, I know that it is a choice some young people make, for various reasons. Since The United States has been in war time for so long, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Afghanistan, finally withdrawing troops, and hoping Syria is not going to be another one, and ever since 911, various terrorism, such as the terrible Boston Marathon bombing, which was so shocking, sad, disturbing, heartbreaking, and unimaginable, I wanted to bring the military into my story. Adrien's story, being killed in Iraq, is right in the center of my book. Books have now been written about Iraq, and I have read some of them, as well as excerpts from others, just as books have been written on other wars, such as The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer, my aunt's first husband, father of my first cousin Susie Mailer, his oldest child. He is dead now.
I did not want to candy coat the lives of average, daily Americans, who see so many hardships.
I got so tired of silly candy coated books, however my book has no sex in it, because I do not like sex in books or movies. It is too personal to me. However, my book has strong language. And, there is some extreme violence in Iraq.
In New England, back home, there is only some mild fist fighting in a bar, and some fox hunting, but no fox even gets shot, because of Nicolas's condition. He freaks out, and has a seizure, so they have to take him to the hospital.
Well, I suppose it could be worse, the poverty, the lives. They could be living in the south side of Chicago, with drive by shootings.
Finally, what does Jim represent? Not only does the healed relationship between Lizzy and her affluent parents improve their lives, and Daniel gets to go to Berkeley School of Music, a miracle, but everyone's life becomes easier with Jim in the picture.
However, do not get it wrong. This is not a romance novel, and Jim is not Prince Charming. He is a normal, established guy, who happens to own and operate a bar on an empty two lane highway. He is a Democrat, has an apartment in Burlington, and drives a truck. He is smart, the kind of guy who can hold his own in conversations anywhere, has good judgment, and is a bit fatherly. He is the kind of guy with a strong handshake, who says, "hey!!" He is the kind of guy who can build a shed, fix a car or play poker. He is not married, nor is he a womanizer. He is burly and pretty good looking, but he is not a pretty boy, nor is he a narcissist. I do not know if I am getting him across. The point is that Lizzy needs help. She has been strong with those boys, doing everything herself for so long, and to her mind Charlie just was not 'strong enough' to be her man, like the Sheryl Crow song. He wanted to be, and he was her friend. He was a good person, but he lacked something she was looking for, and from what you gather from one of the earlier chapters, she would rather take a gray hound bus or get her truck fixed, than go with him to see her parents. I think that says something in and of itself. In fact, it says a lot. But, I do admit that the presence of Jim, in her life, a man she meets at forty-five, working as a bar tender in his bar, makes everyone's life a little easier.
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