Marilyn's Musings

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 ...