By: Holly Robinson
web site http://authorhollyrobinson.com
Twitter @hollyrob1
email hollyrob1@gmail.com
Every novelist hopes the Muse will sit on her shoulder. We
devise clever rituals and talismans to bring her to us, from the special
flannel pants we wear on every writing retreat to the music we listen to, from
that special pot of mint tea we make to the chocolate-covered almonds we allow
ourselves to nibble (or devour) as a reward for finishing each new chapter.
We hope to
lure the Muse to us through writing workshops and by reading other people's
novels. We scan newspaper headlines hoping for story ideas and make frantic
scribblings in our journals if we happen to eavesdrop on a great conversation
in a cafe.
I do all of
these things. But I'm luckier than most: my mother often serves as my Muse, and
I see her nearly every day.
Mom isn't a
writer, but she is an avid reader. Throughout my childhood, she read stacks of
books, so I would flop down on the couch or floor near her and read, too.
(People wonder how to teach their kids to love reading? This is what parents
should do: Make reading seem like the most interesting thing in the world by
doing it yourself in front of your children.)
My mother
read all sorts of books, from science fiction to mystery novels, from romances
to “how to” books on ESP or sheep farming or aliens. Often, Mom would discuss
whatever she was reading with me, and what she liked or didn't like about the
authors and the way they structured their narratives.
Mom is also
a terrific storyteller. Not in the usual sense—she doesn't spin long-winded
yarns around the fireplace, because she's an emotionally reserved Yankee—but in
the sense that she is always, always observing the people around her. She even
had a police scanner in the kitchen so she could follow what was happening in
the small town we moved to when I was a teenager.
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Author Holly Robinson |
(Most
embarrassing moment of my childhood? That time I came home late one night,
after being caught by the police while my boyfriend and I were making out in
his parked car, and finding out that Mom had heard the whole thing on the
police scanner, including the cops chortling.)
Nearly all
of my novels have been sparked by this Mother-Muse of mine. I wrote my last
novel, Beach Plum Island, because of a hair-raising story Mom told me
about her own childhood. She had gone to babysit for a family in her town in
Maine, and was told by the parents that the children were asleep in their
bedroom. “Whatever you do, don't go down to the last bedroom down the hall and
open the door,” they cautioned as they left.
Naturally,
my mother was curious, so down the hall she went. In that last bedroom, she
discovered a blind, nearly feral child who came shooting out to climb up her
legs when she opened the door. In Beach Plum Island, I wrote about three
sisters searching for a brother they never knew they had until their father
died, and that scene plays a pivotal role in the novel.
My newest
novel, Haven Lake, centers around a mother and daughter, Hannah and
Sydney, who have lost touch since two tragic deaths occurred on the farm that
Sydney grew up on—a farm that was a commune run by Hannah and her husband when
he returned from Vietnam. One of the deaths was the mysterious nighttime
drowning of a teenaged boy; that event shattered Sydney's family. As the novel
opens, Sydney is forced to return to Haven Lake for the first time in twenty
years, and she begins to unravel the truth behind what happened that night.
This novel,
too, was inspired by one of my mother's stories. During her own childhood, my
mother's parents ran a fresh air camp for inner-city kids from Boston. They
lived near a pond, and one day, as my grandmother and her camp counselor
assistant took the children down to the pond for a swim, one of the boys ran
into the water ahead of them and drowned. Nobody really knows how it happened,
even though my mom and grandmother were both there.
That event
left an indelible mark on everyone involved. I was moved by the story,
imagining how that boy's parents must have felt when they were told the news;
how the other children had been affected; and what the impact of that tragedy
would have been on my grandmother, who was in charge of the boy—and who, like
my mom, wasn't prone to discussing emotions. I wrote about a drowning in Haven
Lake to explore those emotions. The event also served as a plot device, a
supporting bridge for a tense, emotional narrative about complex family
dynamics.
For
writers, the Muse lives in many places. I'm lucky. I only have to invite Mom to
dinner, and I'm bound to hear a new story, one that inspires me to examine its
colors, untangle the threads, and embroider something new from it.
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