Mother and Daughter: On the Page and In Real Life
I held the signed book contract in my hands, had video-taped my happy dance for Facebook, and was already dreaming of book store signings and podcast interviews. Only then did I realize my mistake. I’d neglected something important, and now, more than just my debut novel was in peril. Through the years of revisions and attempts to dig deep into the hearts and minds of my characters, without intention, one of them had slowly grown to resemble my teenage daughter. The problem now was this: the book would soon be published and my daughter had never read it.
She was only eleven when I’d started the project, far too young to read a novel that touched on issues of sexual assault, drug use, and romance. I hadn’t planned to borrow from her life, but my two main characters were contemporary twin sisters separated at birth, and they had cell phones and internet, they had academic and social pressures beyond anything I’d ever known.
These sisters were journeying through adolescence just as my only daughter was doing the same—and my daughter, fabulous as she is, took up lots of mental real estate. So when the character, Tessa, needed a sport that would define her, I made her a gymnast like my daughter, and when she argued with her adoptive mother in the middle of the book, well, let’s just say I had no trouble creating realistic dialogue.
But as a writer, where is the line between borrowing and stealing from others’ lives? And what would happen if my now nineteen-year-old (yes, it took eight years from beginning to end) was offended, or embarrassed, or hated what I’d written?
It’s not unusual for a novelist to borrow from reality. In recent years there’s been a trend of writing fictionalized versions of true stories, and I’ve seen plenty of online discussions of the pros and cons of writing memoir vs. fiction. In fact, this weekend, my husband started reading a novel and recognized one of the characters as a thinly disguised version of someone he and the novelist both knew.
Still, I was filled with uncertainty, worried about how she’d respond. With a publishing contract in hand, there was a lot at stake.
When the moment of truth arrived, I explained that I’d used a few things from her life and asked for her feedback. After that, I said a short prayer. I tried not to obsess about her response, but the week she spent reading the book seemed endless.
To my great relief, when she returned the manuscript, she was smiling. “I liked it!” she said, and I was reminded of the old Life Cereal commercial where Mikey, who normally hates everything, actually likes what’s in his bowl. “Really?” I needed assurance. “Yes,” she responded, “It’s basically me!”
She went on to say that Tessa’s first year in college had a lot in common with her own. What was surprising about this was the timing. I’d finished the entire manuscript before she left high school. While the first half of the book was laced with details lifted from her childhood, it seemed the second half had uncannily described, with some degree of accuracy, her future.
Art had imitated life and then, somehow, life had imitated art. Without prying, I was gifted a rare opportunity to glimpse her new adult life; the stress of socializing at fraternity parties, falling for an upper classman, the struggles of carrying a heavy course load.
Equally amazing was her final comment, “I think college kids will like it! You should market it to them.” For those who haven’t navigated the treacherous terrain of relationships with teenage children, all I can say is that receiving her endorsement felt like winning a Pulitzer.
Whatever muse had inspired me to give Tessa that particular college experience was indeed generous, and the farther I travel on this writing journey, the more I believe that there are few coincidences. Perhaps that makes perfect sense, because as my editor says, “In fiction, everything must happen for a reason. Whatever occurs has to push the story forward.” Who knows, maybe the same is true in real life. That’s all well and good, but if by chance it’s possible to make a request of fate, mine would be this: that my daughter’s boyfriend turns out to be a more caring and compassionate person than my character Tessa’s boyfriend, Charlie.
—
Lisa A Sturm’s short stories have been published in literary journals such as Tulane Review, Serving House Journal, Mom Egg Review, Willow Review, and Turk’s Head Review, and in an anthology entitled Sisters Born, Sisters Found (Wordforest Press, 2015).
She received the Willow Review Fiction Award and the Writer’s Relief Peter K. Hixson Wild Card/Fiction Award for selections from her debut novel, ECHOED IN MY BONES (Twisted Road Publications, 2019), a story inspired by her work as an inner-city psychotherapist. She has degrees from Barnard College and New York University School of Social Work, and she sees couples and individuals in her private practice in Springfield, New Jersey.
Echoed in My Bones, is available for pre-order at Amazon:
or at Twisted Road Publications: https://twistedroadpublications.com/product/echoed-in-my-bones/
Follow her on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/LisaaSturm/
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisaasturm/
Learn more at: www.LisaASturm.com.
ECHOED IN MY BONES
Fiction. After sixteen-year-old Lakisha White surrenders her newborns, Jasmine who looks black, and Tessa who looks white, are raised in neighboring New Jersey towns, but worlds apart. Jasmine scrapes through a harrowing childhood in the foster-care system while Tessa struggles with her perfectionist mother and the the pressures of being the youngest child in a high-achieving family of physicians and attorneys. Neither Jasmine nor
Tessa know of each other’s existence until Lakisha’s son is diagnosed with leukemia. In order to find a compatible bone-marrow donor, Lakisha is forced to choose between keeping her traumatic history hidden from her longtime boyfriend, or searching for the daughters she abandoned, a decision that could change everything. How Lakisha, Jasmine, and Tessa come together again is this story of the mistakes that threaten to destroy us and the injuries that echo in our bones; the ones that only love can heal.
Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
It sounds like you have a lovely relationship with your daughter!