On Writing ONLY THE WOMEN ARE BURNING

It began under an elm tree at my pool. Like an explosion, this story burst onto the page with the words, “The women began to spontaneously ignite, bodies bursting into miniature mountains of flame across the suburban landscape…” I stared at these, my words. I mulled over them, fixated on them. They haunted me for weeks until they forced me to look very hard at some elements of my own life that served as kindling for the idea. That contemplation smoldered for nineteen years before finding its way into the final draft of my novel, Only the Women are Burning.

That day at the pool, I had three children, a singleton and twins, all born within three years of each other. My husband was always on the road for business. My suggestion that he change careers so we could both have more balance in our lives fell on deaf ears. My diminishing inner flame was not visible to him. I remembered saying to myself, “Just do motherhood right now, that’s enough.” In those words were self-forgiveness for abandoning the other elements of my life, career, part-time work, education, volunteer work, writing, and some friendships. I loved my kids.

What was I to do with these incendiary words on the page? In my first draft, my character was a police investigator, a female detective with a teenaged daughter. A dear journalist friend point blank told me I did not have the background to write a police procedural. Next, my character became an eccentric, obsessive-compulsive character who pestered the police to the point of utter impossibility. I soon scrapped that. I decided I wanted a strong, intelligent, world-savvy protagonist that gave the world absolutely no reason to ignore her, but yet they still did.

Here Cassandra Taylor was born, named for the Greek character who has the gift of prophecy but who nobody will listen to or believe.  Still young at thirty-nine, a mother, lapsed scientist, former anthropologist with strong academic credentials of which nobody in the world knows anything, Cassandra is back in the home town she fled as a young graduate student in anthropology, back home after studying the lives of women in the slums of Bangalore, India, raising kids and working part-time at a museum.

There are varying themes contained in the subtext of Only the Women are Burning. On the surface, this is a sci-fi mystery with fabulist elements. Underneath, it is an examination of women’s lives in our society taking on such issues as women’s bodies, women’s choice; sisterhood; friendships between women; self-help; marriage and the implicit expectations in the roles of wife and mother.  There is a premise of expectation in marriage that is not always shared between partners despite the love they have for each other. 

Cassandra is drawn into the pursuit of the truth after she watches a woman die a fiery death. Was it self-destruction? Was it a serial killer? An accident? She examines the phenomenon much like I did after the idea first came to me. She persists and uncovers more truths than she bargained for when she begins this caper.  

In that regard, she is very much like me and the rest of us when we dare to look beyond the surface to see what is at work in the roles we fill as women. If we stay in those prescribed roles too long, we metaphorically burn the parts of ourselves that are given no outlet for expression.

In Only the Women are Burning, Cassandra offers a woman’s point of view, a unique set of knowledge unknown by anyone who has not walked her path. She reminds us that women see and know in a much different way than men do. She dares us to dig deep under the surface to find our own truth, our own desires, our own intellectual energy. If we don’t, her story warns us, we might just meet the same fate as the women who burn.

—

NANCY BURKE is author of From the Abuelas’ Window (2006), If I Could Paint the Moon Black (2014) and her forthcoming novel, Only the Women are Burning (Apprentice House Press, 2020). Her short story, “At the Pool” is a finalist in the 2020 J.F. Powers Prize for Short Fiction. Her short fiction “He Briefly Thought of Tadpoles” appeared in Meat for Tea and “The Last Day” appeared in Pilgrim: A Journal of Catholic Experience. She was born and bred in New Jersey, in a large Irish family. Her most joyful undertaking: successfully raising her three daughters. Her passion: writing. To learn more about Nancy’s life and work, visit: http://www.nancyburkestories.com 

ONLY  THE WOMEN ARE BURNING

Three women are lost in a single morning, one at a commuter train, one at a school, one while walking her dog in the woods. The police think the women are making some kind of political statement by setting  themselves on fire….maybe members of a cult. But Cassandra knows better. You won’t rest until Cassandra, a mom and former anthropologist, solves the mystery of these fiery deaths. Part mystery, part science fiction, part a suburban domestic novel, Only the Women are Burning asks important questions about women in contemporary suburban lives.

BUY HERE

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips