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Sep
10
Brunonia Barry Guest Blogs!
2009 at 7am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
So, last July, when The Book Lady’s Blog was just a few weeks old, I read this little book called The Lace Reader that other bloggers and folks on LT couldn’t stop talking about. And I loved it. A lot. So I was thrilled when the wonderful ladies at TLC Book Tours gave me the opportunity to host a guest blog from Brunonia Barry.
And then I could barely contain my squeals of excitement when she agreed to write about something I’d been wondering for a while: where exactly did Towner Whitney come from, and how did Brunonia manage to make the unreliable narrator so elegantly compelling? Please give Ms. Barry a warm Book Lady’s Blog welcome.
Lately, I have been hearing about so many novels that were inspired by their authors’ dreams that I’m starting to wonder if this is a common occurrence. Dreams are certainly one way that many of us can tap into our creativity. Although our dream symbols are often more meaningful than our waking images, we don’t ask them to make sense. We just let go and experience them.
My first novel, The Lace Reader, was inspired by a dream. But the night I first had the dream, it had a more urgent meaning and saved me from a trip to the emergency room.
My husband and I had just moved to Massachusetts. We were renovating an old Victorian we had purchased, trying to increase the size of the kitchen by knocking down some walls, a job that was supposed to be completed by the time we moved in but had fallen behind schedule.
Since knocking down walls is a messy job at best, I didn’t unpack very much. One of the things I did unpack was a small piece of handmade lace, a talisman of sorts that my grandmother had given to me years before. When I went to sleep that night, I dreamed that I was holding up that piece of lace and looking through it at one of the walls that would be coming down. I wanted to see through the wall and thereby discover what out finished kitchen would look like. Only in the logic of dreams would this be possible.
Instead of seeing granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, what I saw though the lace was a field of horses. Not only did this make no sense, but, for me, it was an a very alarming dream. I have a severe allergy to horses, not just the kind of allergy that causes a few sniffles, but one that keeps me away from such fun events as parades and requires me to carry an Epipen in my purse. I woke up and felt so agitated by the dream that I couldn’t get back to sleep.
The next morning, my dream took on new meaning. Just as the demolition of the walls was about to start, the contractor turned to me and said, “I hate this old horsehair plaster! It gets into the air, and you can never get it out.”
We stopped the demolition and never did renovate the kitchen. But the incident inspired the short story that turned into The Lace Reader. When we moved to another old house, this time in Salem, the rest of the novel came to me
When I started to write, my story was about May Whitney, a woman who runs a shelter island for abused women and children off the coast of Salem. Initially, I tried to write from May’s point of view, but Towner Whitney, the character who was eventually to become my protagonist, kept taking it over. Towner was an angry young girl, angry in particular at her mother, May. I had no idea at the time what Towner was so angry about, but every time I would try to write as May, Towner would come into the story and tell me why May didn’t deserve her own book. There was some event that Towner was angry about. As I went forward, I found that it was not about what May had done but what she had failed to do. Towner’s point of view became so interesting to me that I allowed her to take over the story.
As it turned out, Towner Whitney was more than just an unreliable narrator. In the first paragraph of Chapter One, she tells you never to believe her, that she lies all the time. She also tells you that she is crazy. While my interpretation as author was different (Towner was truthful within the limits of her own understanding, and, to me, she seemed quite sane), she was nevertheless a very challenging character to write. Her sense of reality was flawed, and she had huge gaps in memory from the electroshock therapy she received as a teenager.
Normally, when one writes an unreliable narrator, the reader realizes the outcome of the story just before the main character does. That’s the general rule. But in this case, Towner was telling the story in retrospect, revealing the truth as it was revealed to her. When Towner spoke, it was in the present tense. If she was duplicitous in any way, (and I don’t believe that she was), it was simply that she wanted the reader to understand her story the same way she had come to understand it, by experiencing it as it happened.
Essentially, The Lace Reader is a book about perception, and the reader’s perception is as important as Towner’s. .
Understanding the character of Towner was a bit like solving a brain-teaser puzzle. Even as a writer, I didn’t know the whole story. On the day that Towner chose to reveal the ending, it was as if I had just discovered a well-guarded family secret. I didn’t believe it, but it resonated on a level I couldn’t ignore. No matter how I tried to engineer the story, in the end, it was Towner’s character who revealed the truth.
Since this was my first novel, I didn’t speak freely about the process for a while. The idea of the character revealing the story was so foreign to me that I was afraid readers might find me as unbalanced as Towner, and I wasn’t ready to go there. After all, she wasn’t speaking aloud to me. I wasn’t hearing voices.
Now that I have met and spoken to so many other writers about their writing processes, I find that my experience is not all that uncommon. For many of us, the creative process is like the dream that first inspired my story. We just have to learn to let go of our urge to control things and to listen to what our characters are telling us.
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Other stuff you might want to know:
- Check out the book trailer for The Lace Reader
- Soon, The Lace Reader’s website will also have a downloadable t-shirt iron-on design and printable signage for booksellers.
- In the September issue of Book Page, there will be a sweepstakes in which the grand prize is a trip for two to Salem, two nights at The Hawthorne Hotel, and a guided Lace Reader tour of Salem with Brunonia (squeee!)
Brunonia is going on tour to support the recent paperback release of The Lace Reader. Here’s her schedule:
9/8 – Bellingham, WA – Village Books – Reading and Signing
9/10 – Oakland – A Great Good Place for Books – Reading and Signing9/12 – San Mateo – M is for Mystery…and More – Reading and Signing
9/14 – Los Angeles – Vroman’s Bookstore – Reading and Signing
9/15—Edwards, CO – VIP Customer Book Club Event
9/20—Andover, MA – Meet the Author Benefit for PATHS
10/12 Mequon, WI Next Chapter Bookshop
10/13 Dallas, TX Legacy Books
10/20 – Lexington, MA Library
10/22- Swampscott, MA Library
10/27- Destination Salem Lunch, Hampton Falls Library
11/18th 10 AM, Exeter Library, Exeter, NH.
Special thanks to Brunonia Barry and TLC Book Tours!
I loooooved “The Lace Reader”! So great reading about the writing process and about how Towner became Towner.
I have not read this book yet – and to be quite honest, didn’t really have an interest (I had no idea what it was about, but since I don’t sew or anything that involves domesticated stitching – the title did not appeal to me).
After reading this post I simply MUST add this book to my fall reading list! I am fascinated with her dream – and its ultimate significance. I LOVE reading how author’s write and I am now totally fascinated with Towner’s character as narrator.
Thank you so much for introducing me to this new author
I almost didn’t read this book last year because the title and cover didn’t seem like something I would normally be interested in…but I’m so glad I picked it up. The Lace Reader is about a whole lot more than sewing (which really figures quite small in the story), and you won’t want to miss it.
[...] I have been invited to guest post at thebookladysblog.com. which is one of my favorite sites. The topic is the inspiration for The Lace Reader and its very [...]
Beautiful post — it’s always illuminating to hear about the writer’s process. I’m also especially interested in dreams, so this was a treat! I tend to agree with molly and Rebecca in that this doesn’t look like something I would normally read, but I’m definitely looking forward to checking it out now. It’s always nice to be surprised by something that looks like a “genre” book.
I haven’t read the book yet, but I loved this guest post and wonder why I can’t have dreams like that. All of mine are wacky!
What a fascinating post! I read The Lace Reader when it first came out and I really enjoyed it. The setting, the characters…they all worked for me.
I’ve read the Lace Reader – it’s a fantastic book. I am a new author and Brunonia has been instrumental in helping me along the path. In addition to a great friend she is truly a great writer. If you haven’t picked up The Lace Reader, get to it! You don’t know what you are missing!
I’m another fan of the book! And I never felt that Towner was a liar…confused, yes, but not an intentional liar.
What a wonderful guest post! I loved this novel just like everyone else. I like how the book started with a dream and that Towner pretty much told the Brunonia that May didn’t deserve her own novel. Knowing that adds even more to the book. Thanks so much for sharing this.
What a wonderful guest post! I enjoy reading about the inspiration behind books and how the characters evolved.
Lace Reader is a book I love and treasure!
Great! The Lace Reader is on my Goodreads “To-read” list. Fantastic tale from Brunonia re the horse allergy! I can truly relate to that one- must beware of old houses with crumbling plaster! The old house next door to us is about to have a gigantic tree removed, so I must flee the premises before the noise and sawdust begin!!
[...] Rebecca at The Book Lady’s Blog has a guest post by Brunonia Barry, author of The Lace Reader – another book that I loved; my review is coming [...]
I haven’t gotten around to reading this book yet, but I have seen a lot of good reviews for it. Reading this post really made me want to read it even more. I really enjoy when writer’s talk about their writing process. I don’t expect it to change mine in any way, but it’s really interesting to try to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, even if only for a few moments – to imagine the dreams that created the characters that we love (or hate). It’s really amazing, what authors do when they write.
Great post.
Thanks for the great guest post. I loved it! I love hearing about the writing process.
[...] Eva tells Towner early in the book, “There are no accidents” (pg. 44). The Lace Reader began as a dream, Brunonia Barry admits, and I’m glad that it turned out much better than other books [...]