POLITICS AND PLOTS by Laurel S. Peterson
Thanks for inviting me to write about what
triggered the plot of Shadow Notes,
Marilyn. I’m happy to be here today.
In my story, Clara Montague comes home after
fifteen years away because she dreams that her mother is in danger. (Clara has
a sixth sense.) A few days after she arrives home, her mother’s therapist is
murdered. Did her mother do it? Since Constance won’t talk to her, Clara
decides to research her mother’s past through volunteering on a local election
campaign because the candidate is one her mother’s oldest enemies. Enemies know
as much as friends, right?
Like many people I know, I don’t consider myself
a political person. However, Adrienne Rich, the feminist poet, once famously
said that the personal was political. She meant that who we were in color,
shape, size, gender, national origin and so on determined for us a set of
political values, a set of needs that could only be answered politically.
Living as I do in a wealthy area of the country,
I see the disparities in my community on almost a daily basis. These
disparities were highlighted for me when some colleagues and I started a
women’s center at the community college where I teach. We were funded by a
local branch of a national service organization. Many wealthy women use the
organization both to do a lot of good, and as a social networking tool.
This fascinated me, and I became almost like an
anthropologist documenting the habits of another species. Strict but unspoken
rules about how one dressed, wedding rituals, working or not working, having
kids or not having kids, what one did with the children after one had them,
house sizes, locations, and decoration projects, husbands’ jobs, personal
fitness, and so on were complex and exhausting. One day, two of the women
commented that the seats in the hallway of the college were dusty between the
cushions and the wall. I thought that my students, worried about how they were
going to pay for their classes or food for their kids that week, had bigger
problems than a little dust. So parodying and investigating and thinking about
the culture clash in my community became a central component of the plot
through my protagonist Clara’s awareness of her own and her family’s privilege.
This political component is also developed
through the senate campaign that occurs in the story. What makes candidates
trustworthy? What are their values? How do people negotiate power in
relationships, be they personal or social? When does our use of power cross
over into abuse? And how does one counter those abuses of power, especially
when that power often comes with lots of money behind it?
I
used Shadow Notes to explore these questions. I’d love to hear your
answers, too! Thanks for reading.
Book Blurb: Clara
Montague’s mother Constance never liked—or listened—to her but now they have to
get along or they will both end up dead. Clara suspects she and her mother
share intuitive powers, but Constance always denied it. When Clara was twenty,
she dreamed her father would have a heart attack. Constance claimed she was
hysterical. Then he died.
Furious,
Clara leaves for fifteen years, but when she dreams Constance is in danger, she
returns home. Then, Constance’s therapist is murdered and Constance is
arrested.
Starting
to explore her mother’s past, Clara discovers books on trauma, and then there’s
a second murder. Clara realizes that only in finding the connection between the
murders and her mother’s past can she save her mother and finally heal their
relationship.
BIO: Laurel S. Peterson is an
English professor at Norwalk Community College in Connecticut. Her poetry has
been published in many literary journals and she has two poetry chapbooks. Her
first mystery, Shadow Notes, has just
been released by Barking Rain Press.
.
Website: www.laurelpeterson.com
Twitter
@laurelwriter49
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