WHY DID YOU WRITE THAT SCENE?

WHY DID YOU WRITE THAT SCENE? By Deborah K. Shepherd

I’m on the phone with my sister-in-law, discussing the upcoming debut of my novel, So Happy Together. As is the case with most of my other relatives and friends, Jaye is excited to have “an author in the family” and has many questions, most of the “what’s it like?” ilk.

“When you’re writing, do you hear your characters’ voices in your head?” she asks. “I’ve heard some authors say that.”

Yes, I do, actually. Some of my characters are loosely based on people I’ve known, or are composites of people I’ve known, or one of my characters says something I’ve heard one of my kids say, and sometimes, characters will even tell me where I’ve gotten it wrong, often prompting a rewrite (after my initial resistance).

There’s one scene in my book I wrote in one sitting, but later struggled with and rewrote several times because I became afraid of how it would be received. In it, Peter MacKinley, described by Caro Mills (the book’s protagonist) as “…a sweet, shy, soft-spoken, self-effacing, church-going college boy who blushed easily, was good to his mother, and rescued stray cats,” has a secret he’s closely guarded for more than a dozen years: He was sexually assaulted as a child, and he’s never told anyone. One night, though, he’s triggered and is compelled to tell Caro, the person he is closest to, the person he trusts more than anyone. She’s not sure she’s ready to hear it, but she listens in mute horror as Peter relives the attack.

I wrote the scene in Peter’s voice, as he relates what happened to his eleven-year-old self the night the music director asked him to stick around after choir practice. He doesn’t spare the details. It’s a great relief to Peter to finally get it all out there. And it was a great relief for me to help him tell his story.

And then, it wasn’t a relief at all–quite the opposite. After the manuscript was complete and sent to the publisher, I had second thoughts, and then third thoughts, and then fourth thoughts and then woke in the middle of the night, filled with angst.  Would an attack on a child, told in the victim’s own (adult) voice offend readers? Would it keep people from reading the book? Would reviewers dismiss everything I had written based on this two-page scene? Would it invite obscene comments on my Facebook page? Would I be forever known as the woman who wrote “that dirty book?”

I emailed my project manager at She Writes Press and told her to hold off with the proofing, as I was going to rewrite that scene in Caro’s voice, so she could talk about the effect Peter’s confession had on her.

I tried several times to write that version, but it came out stilted and dishonest. And then I figured out why.

Before I retired in 2013, I was the director of a domestic violence program in central Maine. My previous position was as the director of an advocacy organization for rape crisis centers.

I am also a survivor of rape.

In September of 2018, I– like everyone else I knew–was riveted to the televised Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings and the chilling and compelling testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. I also followed the story closely (in those pre-Covid days when I actually read newspapers in print) in The New York Times and was particularly affected by an article on trauma and memory. The day after I’d read that story, I woke before dawn, wrote an email Letter to the Editor, and hit “send” before I could change my mind. Several hours later, I had an email informing me they would print my letter in that day’s edition:

“Re: ‘Memories of Assault Will Stick,’ (Op-Ed, Sept. 20):

I am 71 years old. Sometimes I forget what I had for dinner last night, whether I’ve taken my vitamins this morning, or a lunch date I’ve neglected to write in my calendar. Yet I remember every detail of the night I was raped 53 years ago, in circumstances similar to what Christine Blasey Ford describes.

This week, I have been retriggered by the attacks on Dr. Blasey Ford’s character and credibility. I have no doubt that this has been the case for millions of other survivors of sexual assault as well. Is it any wonder that so many of us wait years before we tell, or even take this trauma to the grave?”

Peter was determined that he would not take his trauma to the grave and he let me know in no uncertain terms. His voice was most definitely in my head: “It’s my story to tell in my own voice, and no one, not even you, dear author, will silence me again.”

So, I wrote for Peter, I wrote for myself, and I wrote for every other trauma survivor who has ever been silenced by shame, fear, opprobrium, or self-blame.

I wrote that scene because I had to. I couldn’t not write it.                                                                    #

—

Deborah K. Shepherd’s first novel, So Happy Together, will be published by She Writes Press on April 20, 2021. She can be reached at www.deborahshepherdwrites.com or on Facebook at Deborah K. Shepherd, Author.

SO HAPPY TOGETHER

As her stultifying marriage is unravelling, and in the midst of mourning the loss of her creative self, Caro Tanner has a nightmare about Peter, an old love whom she hasn’t seen in twenty years. She takes this as a sign he still needs her. With her three children safely off to summer camp, Caro embarks on a pre-Facebook, pre–cell phone road trip to recapture who she once was and what she thinks she once had.

Set in the sex, drugs, and rock ’n roll ’60s in Tucson, Arizona—when Caro and Peter were kooky, colorful, and inseparable drama students—and in the suburban ’80s, when Caro’s creative spark has been quenched to serve the needs of her husband and children, So Happy Together explores the conundrum of love and sexual attraction, creativity and family responsibilities, and what happens when they are out of sync. It is a story of missed opportunities, the tantalizing possibility of second chances, and what we leave behind, carry forward, and settle for when we choose. It sits in that raw, messy, confounding, beautiful place where love resides.

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