My parents, on the right, with my mother's best friend Elaine at left, in 1970.
It’s amazing sometimes, where the pathways of thought will lead. This morning I was online researching currency in the 17th century. In my novel, a coin is a central icon throughout the story so I need to find just the right one. There is much to be found about Elizabethan currency, but so far not much that is specific to my time period.
Anyway, the word “sixpence” set me off. It reminded me of “Half a Sixpence,” the 1967 musical based on a novel by H.G. Wells and starring British pop star of that time, Tommy Steele – and the title song began to play in my head. I was cast back to when I was 11 years old and my parents went to this show. They came home from their date absolutely bubbling. They were happy. They were both singing. They bought the soundtrack album and played it frequently. And when my father sang it was a grand thing – not that he was a great singer (he wasn’t bad), but it meant there was happiness and joy in our household. When he was happy, we could all be happy. The converse was also true.
But then I remembered that this kind of happiness went from occasional to rare, and did not last. Over the next eight years things would tumble, my parents would divorce, and I would go off to college bewildered and distressed. It was the 60s and 70s – sex, drugs, rock & roll. Everything was bewildering. Our family of five exploded, each going our own ways, and our ties to each other became thin and fragile.
Then I began to consider my father’s viewpoint in all of this, which I believe was primarily one of disappointment. Probably from before he and my mother even married he had set his sights on having three boys. He must have imagined them as smart and good-looking, athletic – probably winning a slew of ribbons and trophies on the swim team, playing on high school and college football teams, and then more ribbons and trophies riding hunter-jumpers with power and finesse. Then those sons would go on to make buckets of money in their professions and sire grandson after grandson in their own image, establishing my father’s legacy forever. Was it God’s sense of humor that instead he ended up with three sensitive girls who loved dolls and pretty clothes?
Then I arrived at the next layer, focusing on the disappointment. And I always seem to come ‘round to this. None of his daughters were very athletic, and I’m pretty sure he thought we were destined to become housewives, secretaries or school teachers rather than captains of industry. I focused on journalism, and the memory came upon me of one morning when I was visiting him while on break from college and we were having breakfast. He told me, if he was ever to write his memoirs he would start it in a particular way. I can’t even remember now what way that was – probably because my young and disappointed mind was preparing to lash out. Instead of encouraging him to write his memoir and offering to help – which is what I would like to do today if I could – I smirked and said “That’s probably what they would tell you not to do.”
I think the conversation pretty much ended after that, not that I recall the rest clearly. My punishment is that my father wrote no memoir, and when he died I realized (with the impact of a brick squarely between the eyes) that I knew almost nothing about him, his life as a young man, his dreams, his turning points. My husband says if my father wanted to write his memoir, he would have written it – my stupid comment did not have the power to stop it. But then, he probably felt he did not have a legacy he could be proud of.
Before he died my father once said to me he had reached the top of the mountain and was now descending the other side. He did not like it. He had nothing to show for his life. I said, “You have three daughters.” This elicited barely a shrug. He was disappointed. And I was disappointed. Perhaps it was not so much disappointment in his daughters, as I had until now believed. We know he loved us. Maybe it is just that he was ashamed he had not done more with his life, and so chose not to write about it.
The trick for a writer is to follow this thought process through, discover some perspectives that might not have been clear before, and figure out how to turn it into story. My first novel was about the life of a man of my father’s time – I did not have my father’s history, so I simply made it up. It was a satisfying process, and I was able to inject much of the feeling I had experienced in our family life (write what you know, as they say).
Still, I wish I could give a sixpence for his thoughts.
When I was in college and wanted to avoid the hard work of studying for an exam or writing a research paper — I suddenly discovered that my bathroom was in desperate need of a deep and thorough cleaning. So, it should come as no surprise (although somehow it did) that since I’ve matured, so have my habits. Now that I am facing a major revision of my novel, I suddenly and desperately need to remodel the entire guest bathroom. I will not be dissuaded.
I appreciated Ann Curry before, but after hearing her speak at the Association for Women In Communications’ national conference Saturday night, I am a true fan. It is not because she is gorgeous — though she is. Her face absolutely glows, and when she mentioned she grew up in the 50s like my friend and me, my friend who is contemplating a facelift leaned toward me to say “I think I’ll just kill myself right now.”
My professional group, the Association for Women In Communications, is celebrating its centennial this year. And, because it all started with a few like-minded and determined women at the University of Washington, the UW School of Communications is co-sponsor for the 
I had to put down Phillippa Gregory’s 
