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| Margaret's Musings | |
| So many readers have asked me questions about my novels and about the
characters, that it seems appropriate to elaborate a little about
the
process of collecting information from
interviews, letters, and research and turning them into stories. Call this my
blog, if you choose. Except to change the names to protect the guilty, my
historical fiction is based on true stories and events. I'll try to tell you
how each book came into being. If you have any questions or comments, I hope you'll "contact the author" from the home
page and I'll try to answer any concerns you may have. I'd like this to be a
"dialogue" and not just a "monologue." |
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| My latest novel is here... Dancing in the Wind | ||
 When we are young, we are convinced old
age will never come. |
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| And then one day we look in the mirror and see
"our mother," and the day has arrived. It comes fast. So, what goes through
the mind of an elderly person when children and grandchildren start
talking about retirement or nursing homes? What can young people do to
not only honor their parents for years of devotion and keep them
safe and comfortable as they age, while still keeping their own life going? How can an elderly person fight to
keep from losing independence when life begins winding down? Seeing news articles about the "sandwich generation" and watching many friends put themselves through the difficulty of dealing with aging parents or grandparents made me feel this is a topic we need to talk about more openly. The Sidony family are facing such a dilemma in Dancing in the Wind, and we see the arguments and human fallacies that surface whenever generational issues come up. Martha Sidony, however, at 92 years old, is not going without a fight. I wanted us to see the world through Martha's eyes, and make decisions through her experience. So it was necessary that she be our POV character. She is surrounded by a large extended family who all seem to agree, except nobody asked her. I made Martha a retired teacher, simply because I know a lot of retired teachers. They are the most independent people I know, and they are full of the kind of true stories Martha tells about the problems of her "kidlets." Her desire to keep her independence is probably echoed in every home across the country, but she is also getting a little eccentric, forgetful, and has fallen a few times. Her children agree the time is right for Martha to move. She doesn't. It is a bit of irony that Martha's main ally is her tattooed and pierced great-granddaughter, of whom she is not quite sure she approves. But the two develop a bond, and it will be Granny to the rescue should the girl find trouble. Martha puts her family first above all, and her actions show her desire for a choice in how to end her life with dignity. |
 What are little children thinking? |
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| I Think I Can, I Think I Can | ||
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This novel has the compelling honesty of an intimate
conversation. Children
are quite open and honest, often to our surprise at how they have
interpreted our comments. To know the hearts of my characters, and
still show them with compassion, humor, and generosity became quite a
task in this story. There are weak characters who can hurt, and those
who help a child along the way. Little Katie finds that forgiveness is
survival. |
 If you know anyone accident prone, you'll see why the Eiffel Tower is falling down. |
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| Mama Told Me Not to Come | ||
| This novel is based on true travel adventures in Europe and the Middle
East. The two main characters are composites of several real people, most of
them in DoDDS (Department of Defense Dependent Schools teaching overseas during
the Cold War), so we cannot blame all the
disasters on any one person in
particular. How's that for camoflauge?...smile. This novel is a comedy, with even the little caracature drawings comic, taken from various friends' travel diaries, as is. Don't expect "art." But all of the stories and situations are true. DeeDee Otero and Megan James manage to get into probably far more trouble than Ethel and Lucy could have done. From a burlesque stage in Berlin to a hit and run accident in Vicenza, from PLO in Bethlehem to erratic driving in Rome, these two bounce from disaster to disaster and, in the process, they finally learn what a growing and valuable friendship they have found. DeeDee (real name Dolly Dozie, so you can see why she goes by DeeDee) is a 29-year-old virgin whose clock is ticking loudly for marriage and babies, a fact she tells every man she meets. This is not exactly conducive to enduring relationships. You met my alter ego Megan James in Shadows on an Iron Curtain, when she was quite naive herself, and she struggled with recovery from the death of her young husband. By now, she tends to be a little skeptical about men, and extremely accident prone. This may not be the best person to help DeeDee reach her goals, learn social skills, and survive in the overseas Cold War mileau, but they are thrown together for trip after trip. DeeDee naively thinks because "nothing ever happens to her," she can save Megan from her innate, Murphy's Law disasters, while Megan is something of a jinx to every travel experience. Some people won't even get on a plane with her. And that's TRUE... Should you like to hear more what this story is about, please feel free to tune in to a video interview with the author at www.pikespeakwriters.com and judge for yourself. This book is good recreational reading, a tale of travel to all the places where you've ever wanted to go, and you can have a good laugh on us. |
 Sometimes we may try too hard, but we can never give up on a child. |
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| Street Smart on a Dead End | ||
| In the 1960's we teachers always assumed drugs and gangs were isolated
incidents--something that happened someplace else and that had nothing to do
with our little neighborhood of white picket fences. We were in for a rough awakening when Olivia came
into our school. I finally decided I needed to write this story, but it still
hurt to write it. I gathered together my memories for the first three chapters
and took it to my Critique Group for comment. My critique group, all under 40, read the first three chapters in manuscript form. They liked the story, but they were unanamous that it was impossible to believe that six adults stood around an overdosed twelve-year-old. The conversation sounded something like this.... "...and not one of you called 9-1-1?" said one critique member. "We didn't have 9-1-1 then," I answered. "You could have called her mother." "We did, again and again, but she was never there, and we couldn't have taken her home to an empty house." "Couldn't you have left her mom a message?" "No message machines. Besides, we had reason to believe her mother might be abusive." "Then you should have called the Abuse Hot Line." "No Abuse Hot Line then. That didn't come along until we went to Sacramento and got laws passed." "Well you could have taken her to rehab." "There was no rehab for kids then, either. The closest thing to rehabilitation was the Midnight Mission down on Los Angeles' Skid Row where all the old winos went." "Well, what about Juvenile Hall?" "Juvie had more drugs inside than they did on the outside. Besides, we hoped we could help her ourselves, since there was no one to help a kid on drugs then. We didn't want her to have a record if this was the first time she'd over-dosed. We found out later it wasn't the first, but we didn't know how to tell at first." "Didn't you have any teacher training on drugs. Teachers nowadays have all kinds of training." "No teacher training on drugs, then. We didn't know yet that it would become a massive problem." I was beginning to wonder if I was telling a story that no one younger than me would understand. I have never felt so old as with these younger people who were from the age of technology. Should I abandon the whole project? But the group convinced me that it was a "dynamite story," just that they had to get used to the idea that all they knew of life wasn't around in the 1960's. They asked me what we eventually did with the overdosed girl...."Next chapter," I told them. "When we teachers couldn't think of anything we could do with her until we could find her mother or her drugs wore off, I wound up taking her home to my family. The trouble was, I kept going to the office to call home, and no one was there yet, so I had to take Olivia home with no warning. Here I was bringing a foul-mouthed, drugged, armed gang member home to my calm family, and I didn't know how they would all react." One critique member sighed loudly. "Well, the least you could have done was to call home in the car on your cell phone to warn them!" "No cell phones!" I give up! Now that the book is done, they all like it, but you'll never know how close I came to dropping the whole project because I felt like my generation had come from another planet. |
 A novel of love and betrayal, but who betrayed whom? |
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| Between Duty and Devotion | ||
| This is the story of a fast-track military officer who has tremendously effective
command of his troops, but no control of his private life. He eventually must
make horrendous choices between his duty to his country and his devotion to
those he loves. The novel came about because, through my affiliation with the military for 21 years, skiing and traveling with the people involved, we became good friends and confidants. As I watched their rank going upward, I also noticed their marriages going downward. As a curious writer, I wondered why that might be happening. What mysterious effect of the military environment could also affect a marriage? My subsequent interviews and research with my friends and other military people led me to tell the story of the difficulty of sustaining military relationships. While a good marriage where two people understand and support each other's work, and where their communication is good enough they can talk things over before they escalate to an argument, will be a great thing, in or out of the military, all marriages are not that solid. If a woman loves the idea of marriage, sees her military man going up through the ranks as part of her security, and sees walking under those crossed swords as Cinderella-style romance, the couple is in for a rough ride. It means she doesn't understand that when she married that guy who looked cute in his uniform, she was also marrying his military duty and responsibility. As soon as my friends found that I was creating this story as a novel, combining five couples as one dysfunctional family, which would also camoflage their identities, they came forward with letters, diaries, and journals to be sure I had enough information for my research. One officer even gave me a copy of his divorce papers! Now, that was more information than I needed! But they felt this story "needed to be written" and they were eager to supply personal case studies, since they felt that military relationships are greatly misunderstood by the public at large. Most people don't realize the extra stress that is placed on the shoulders of a man who is responsible for the lives of others, and the stress that fact places on the rest of his family. Also, most civilians do not understand that a military person may have to give up a great deal of his or her personal freedom in order to protect the freedom of others. It takes a strong marriage indeed, to survive under all the additional stressors of frequent deployments, the fear of war's death rate, loneliness, infidelity, raising children alone, not to mention any excess "baggage" brought into the marriage by either partner. With the War against Terror going on, it is no wonder that the military divorce rate has doubled in the last year. This story traces a dysfunctional relationship intensified by the military life style, yet convoluted by restrictions on divorce while in the service. One could see it as either an unorthodox love story that lasts into Eternity, or the marriage from Hell, but I've long since discovered that everyone reads into a story what they need to read into it, so opinions will vary. Young wives at a nearby Army base laughingly told me they had selected this story as their "textbook" for how NOT to be a military wife. I gave a copy to a young cadet from the Air Force Academy who had already reserved their beautiful chapel for his wedding the day after graduation (the magic of those crossed swords again) and he had not even chosen the girl yet! I told him that he needed to read this story before making any further decisions. He did, and e-mailed to say he'd cancelled his reservation. Do let me know what you think. Though many husbands and wives are strong and caring, if there are any cracks in the foundation of a marriage, the military life will certainly exacerbate them into canyons. I hope there are very few women like "Faye" in the world, but I'm sure anyone who has served their country will recognize someone like her. She comes to life in this novel. This particular officer, "Neil," is on his way up, which pleases his wife, but while she loves the idea of marriage for its security and status, she also hates the man, and tells him so, frequently. His dearest dream is a love of warmth and intimacy to support him in his demanding job. While he can meet his wife's need for security, she, for whatever reason, cannot meet his need for emotional warmth. But in his loneliness, he accidentally finds a woman whose warmth and self-sacrifice counteracts his rejection and lack of confidence at home. The resulting catastrophe is probably unavoidable. Can he meet his obligations to the military responsibility he loves and still save his children and the woman who loves him, or will the "most painful decision of a lifetime" ruin all hopes and dreams? As readers, you might like to know that I did some experimentation in this novel. While it, too, takes place in Cold War Germany, it is not as much about the dangerous life of the Border and the rigorous areas of Grafenwohr as it is about the relationships that develop under those pressures. I experimented with Point of View. The story is told from three different points of view, chapter by chapter, as three very different characters inevitably approach the conflagration where all must face painful decisions. And yes, the characters do become very real to me, and others have expressed the same thing. One reader wrote me, "I feel that I know these characters, and they represent the dilemma all military couples face." I would say they probably represent all couples, military or civilian, who have somehow lost the ability to communicate. Another reader said, "This dysfunctional couple could be any of us, and their decisions, good and bad, become our own." A third wrote, "This story has it all, malice, incompatabiity, longings, betrayal...all the things that can ruin your day...but it also has the hope found in eternal friendship and loyalty to one's country." One reader said it was her favorite novel because she "...cried all the way through," while another said, "... it was like a military version of Bridges of Madison County in its eternal, yet unorthodox love." Sadly, two of the composite charactors in this novel also passed away shortly after completion of the story, one only six days after the "Spook" of Shadows on an Iron Curtain. "Neil" was a good man who perhaps tried far too hard to protect everyone and everything--an impossiblity--but God Bless him for trying. It has been a hard year for me to lose these loving friends, and only this last month, another of the composite characters also died of cancer. "Skip" and "Neil," of Between Duty and Devotion are now both gone, as well as "Big Ed the Spook" and "Emily" of Shadows on an Iron Curtain. I'm grateful that at least all four good and faithful friends had a chace to read "their" stories before they died. I've tried to portray them honestly for my readers to know and appreciate them as I have. "Skip" was fond of paraphrasing Goethe when he said that every day we should appreciate something "good, fine, and reasonable." Friendships are to me, so very precious...good, fine, and reasonable.. Sleep well, my dear and loyal friends. I'll miss you all. |
 Cover drawing by Ron Hosie, from a photo of the
East/Wests communist Border near Hof, Germany |
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| Shadows on an Iron Curtain | ||
| You can see the communist guard towers,
the mine field, and the razor wire fence. I lived near this Border
seven years, and I took this "forbidden" photo while hiding my camera
in my coat collar.. This novel came about because I was angry. Now that the Cold War is over, we won, the walls fell, the communists went home, yet all anybody seems to remember about all those years of our history is the Berlin Wall. Of course, the Berlin Wall was a powerful symbol of resistance to the communist juggernaut because it was very visible, being in one of the world's largest cities, and anything that happened there was heard all around the world in minutes on international newswires, so it was also very public. But the Border stretched all across Europe, dividing the East and West, dividing farms, families and small towns into free and communist enclaves. It was much less visible, and far more secret than the Berlin Wall. No one ever publicized the intrigue of the Border. But as a school teacher sent by the Department of Defense to teach children in Bamberg, a military base whose soldiers guarded that Hof/Coberg Border 24/7, I quickly learned that their mission was a potentially suicidal one, putting them on the edge of extinction with every "Alert." Of the seven years I lived on that Border, I wrote of two years during which our troops were actually on Alert more days than they were off. Who would make better impartial observers of our military Border activities, than four ditzy new school teachers who are sent to the base without even knowing it's a Border base? They, too, had only heard about the more famous Berlin Wall, and never realized the Border existed. Over their first few weeks, they become acquainted (naturally--smile) with several of the single military officers whose troops are responsible for Border security. Because of the imminent potential for a communist invasion, the teachers and officers become part of the protective "family" of the Border-- to keep each other safe...sometimes from their own depression. While everyone loves to ski and party--about the only two recreations Border folks are allowed, they also gradually discover the mysterious "Spooks" (undercover operatives-spies) who "haunt" both sides of the Border and seem to have their own agendas and gun battles. With each Alert, more is discovered of the "training accidents" that are not really accidents, the "shortage of equipment" that disappears, the "nukes" that both sides hide cleverly, the sabotage of military facilities, the terrorist threats of Bader Meinhoff, and the problems of aviators flying the Border in all weather, which occasionally precipitates accidental international Border incidents. It is interesting that many people in the U.S. considered they were "at peace in Europe" for all those years. They would be surprised to know how many times we were within a hairsbreadth of World War III, (usually when one of our national leaders opened his mouth to give a speech--just like today, hm?). Any war then, would most definitely have been nuclear. Most Americans did not seem to realize that it was our SAC planes constantly in the air, and our Cavalry and their supporting Infantry, Artillery, Aviation, Intelligence, and Engineering counterparts on the ground at that Border that kept us out of a war for all the years until the Soviets gave up and went home in November of 1989. As a young widow, I was devastated and could rarely sleep. I spent the night writing long letters to my stepmother in California. When I was ready to write this story, she said, "Do you want your letters back?" I never dreamed she had kept them all. I laughed and cried and remembered, but it was all there! As readers, you might find it interesting that I simply wrote the whole story, not giving "military security" a thought. Though it seemed everything was top secret while I was there, I thought the passage of time since the 1974-76 time period, and the retreat of the Soviets, would have eliminated any need for military secrets. But, being around military people for so long (21 years teaching on bases overseas plus marrying an Army pilot), I began to get a little nervous about security once the manuscript was nearing completion. What if I had inadvertantly said something that could still hurt our soldiers? To ease my mind, I e:mailed chapter by chapter to an old friend, the "Spook, Big Ed" in the story, to have him check it out. Sure enough, there were still three "classified" things I had to remove from the book, and one thing I had to "move." He said, "It's sealed, camoflaged, and no one knows it's there, but if we ever have problems in Europe again, we'll need it. You can tell about it, but don't give away its location." So I "moved" this facility in the novel. Then he said, "By the way, how did you know about that, anyway?" I told him, "I think you told me." He laughed, and said, "Oops." Unfortunately, after he ran the story through his channels for security issues and accuracy, and only a year after the publication of Shadows on an Iron Curtain, "Big Ed" died suddenly. He'd been paralized for many years, but he could still write his little "one-finger messages" and we remained friends. A wonderful man, and I really miss his daily e:mails on the computer. We also lost our dear friend, "Emily" in 2007, only weeks after the DoDDS reunion in July where she was her usual "dramatic" self. She was a much loved member of the original "fearsome foursome" of teaching friends in this book, who faced all the dangers of the Cold War together. I hope you'll want to meet the "family" who defended the Border: the cocky Cavalry, the Artillery who could actually drink their lethal punch, the muddy Infantry, the Aviators who flew around trees as often as over them, the Spies who kept a low profile, the Engineers who actually liked working with mines, and yes, the DoDDS school teachers who taught children first, and supported their military friends afterward. The alcoholic, the cynic, the skirt chaser, the party animal, the soft heart, the flirt, the sophisticate, the skier, the secretive--all are seen through the naive eyes of a suicidal young widow who gathers strength to live from the example of men facing the possibility of death with every Alert. This novel is both comic and tragic, but it tells their story. I wanted you to know that it was the vigilance of these soldiers who kept the Cold War from becoming a Hot War, yet few would ever know of the secret shadows against that Iron Curtain. |
 How would we fair under a dictatorship? I pray we never have to find out. |
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| Mutti's War | ||
| Not surprisingly, even living in Germany
for 21 years, I found most people were reluctant to talk about World
War II. Some reticence may have been collective guilt, some a fear that
the interviewer might be critical, and some just because people
couldn't bear to remember the sadness of that era. In Mutti's case, she
truly believed that if she never talked about the war, her sons
wouldn't remember all the ugliness they had seen. So, once the war was
over, she never spoke of it again. She changed the subject whenever I
asked her questions, even after I married her eldest son and became her
"American" daughter-in-law. Perhaps she was right, because my husband, "Willi" in the story, remembered only the physical elements of the long trek--being tired, cold, hungry, (especially hungry) scared of strafing planes, and anxious to find his Vati. But he had no idea of all his mother had endured to keep him and his brothers alive, or the Nazi laws she had broken to smuggle them across a country at war. He had only been nine at the time, and the physical events had been quite traumatic enough. After many futile attempts to get Mutti to talk, since I was interested in the history of the era, and she had lived it, I finally had her alone one day when the rest of the family was out for their "obligatory" after-dinner four hour walk. I had stayed behind to keep her company. I guess I finally asked the right question--a journalist's question, with no easy yes/no, or evasive answer, because she finally answered. I asked her, "When in your whole life were you the most frightened?" I assumed she would say something about the bombings, but at least that might lead to more open conversation. She paused, and then said quietly, "I think it was when I was lying in a muddy ditch, watching two Russian sentries on the road above me, and I was trying to count how many seconds it took for them to pace to the end and return, so I'd know how long I had to run across the road and the minefield to get into the trees." She added with a grin, "I was so scared that I kept forgetting the numbers." I almost fell out of my chair! Our dear, petite, quiet Mutti had actually run the Cold War Border between East and West Germany to get her children to the west zone, and no one in the family even knew it! At that point, I gasped, "Mutti, you must tell me the rest--people need to know." She made me promise I wouldn't write the story until after she was gone. I realized later that she had to make decisions no one should ever have to make, and she couldn't bear to have her sons ask questions. In spite of all the pain, she loved her man until the day she died and sobbed uncontrollably at certain points of our many interviews. After that first day, it was almost as though I had unzipped the heart, and all her life fell out. She seemed actually eager to tell me everything and get it off her chest after so many years of holding it all in. I began taking copius notes on whatever I happened to have in my purse when we were alone and she felt like talking--napkins, envelopes, laundry lists. But I had to take them home and just throw them in my drawer because I had promised. After her death, two years later, I got out the drawer, sat in the middle of my living room rug and "sorted" all my scraps of paper into a logical order. "Willi" was quite shocked when I eventually asked him to read the manuscript. "Why didn't I know about this? Why didn't she ever tell us?" were some of the questions he could stammer. He was obviously in awe of all his mother had accomplished and all she had kept secret for her whole life. Mutti didn't think anyone would be interested in her story, but I find each reader sees her resourcefulness in bending every rule, walking every road, and foraging every forest to keep her children alive through the endless trek across a horrible war zone as an example of the strength to which we all hope we can rise, when tested. Hemingway would call it "grace under pressure," and declare her a heroine. Her story has become the universal story of a woman's physical courage, as well as the political and emotional courage to make life-shattering decisions when she must, regardless of her own pain in doing so. I'm grateful Mutti finally shared her story with me before she slipped away from us, and I hope she would be proud of what I've done with it. It was a labor of love. She was a great lady to all of us even before we knew her story--just as a loving mother and grandmother that no one ever saw lose her grace or raise her voice. Her sons deserved to know of her heroism, and we all can enjoy the mystery she kept secret all those years to protect those she loved. I hope her story is one you will enjoy as well. Let me know what you think, either of Mutti's War, or of my comments to you here. You can always send me your questions on the "contact the author" part of the home page, and I hope you will. |
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