The story behind AMERICAN GODDESS by Lelsely Affrossman

American Goddess covers Lelsely Affrossman’s main themes of previous books – she is passionate about ancient history and women’s voices. The book is about an American couple in Edinburgh who discover an ancient secret, “The Women’s Secret”, and the repercussions of that ancient knowledge in today’s 24/7 connected media environment.

“A magnificent Achievement” Alasdair Gray

As the pandemic loosens its grasp Peter and Ellisha Kelso find their lives spiralling out of control. But Edinburgh is a city of secrets and, through a chance encounter, they stumble across the most dangerous one of all, known only as The Woman’s Secret.

Armed with this knowledge, they set out to heal a damaged world and, before they know it, the idea has gone viral. American and mixed-race, Ellisha is an unlikely messiah, but she soon becomes the new face of hope for despairing people everywhere.

But if they thought The Woman’s Secret would produce a kinder, gentler world, they are in for a terrible shock.

We asked Lelsely if she could tell us about the inspiration behind her book.

‘Your job is to prevent terrorists from entering the theatre.’ These words were addressed to me a few years ago at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. This was the moment I discovered that I was not only to take on the exalted role of ticket collector at the venue featuring my son’s play, but I was also now head of security. I glanced uneasily at my eighty-two-year-old father, who had come along to offer me support, and now found himself assigned to the unlikely role of comrade in arms. ‘And how exactly will we prevent them from coming in?’ I asked nervously. Immediately we were treated to a demonstration of Jean-Claude van Damme kick-boxing techniques. Yet, strange as it sounds, this incident helped me find the final piece of inspiration for my novel, American Goddess.

After practicing a few ninja style kicks of my own and almost putting my back out, I decided a breath of fresh air and a dose of rationality were called for. The show didn’t start for a couple of hours, and I opted to take a walk around Edinburgh to clear my head. Now, while I knew the city well,—rushing from shop to shop or visiting the theatre—in some ways, I didn’t know it at all. I had never lived there and saw it only as a means to some other end. Here was my opportunity to get to know it better, and so I walked around the dark winding streets allowing myself to feel the old magic of a city that casts unpredictable shadows.

Secretive, that’s what I thought as I turned opposite The World’s End café down Baron Maule’s Close only to find myself in a hidden garden. (To maintain the romance, let’s not dwell on the fact I was looking for the chocolatarium.) There was a deep green pool in the garden and that numinous sense about the place you only get on coming across somewhere unexpected. I felt like Sir Walter Scott as he stared into a Scottish loch and found his inspiration for his epic poem, The Lady of the Lake. Edinburgh was a city of secrets so why not let it be the place where an ancient mystery was hiding, a mystery called Ignis Dei or The Woman’s Secret?

But how to find the characters? Mythology was at the heart of my novel, and I turned to it for inspiration. As a Scot, I was drawn, naturally enough, to the Celtic cycles, in particular the idea of the Sidh, those supernatural creatures who are said to live on the far side of the world. And if you are standing in Edinburgh, where exactly is the far side of the world, but the US?

It suddenly became obvious; if I was going to have the head of a strange new mythology, why not make her American, a woman, of mixed heritage who would come to represent all people, all mythologies? Yet, at the same time, she would be very much of her era, a solid, twenty-first century woman aware of the power of the internet and social media with real problems to face, such as bankruptcy and the longing for a child.

You see, for me, mythology is not a thing of the past, a comfortable word we assign to those superstitious times when people cowered before the primordial dark. In our slick technology-driven world, it is easy to forget how mythology affects every aspect of how we live our lives. But we all have our mythologies, our stories that define who we are, the things we believe, what we stand for. In recent years we have seen the rise of powerful new stories that are shaping our world. Take the word, Woke, for example. Although its antecedents go back to the 1940’s, most of us had never heard of it before 2014. Now it has begun to define policy across the globe.

Mythology defines us. It structures our world, whom we love and whom we hate, who is the shining example of’ the good’, and who is our enemy.  Mythology can shape our imaginations. It can make us see round corners and over hills. But it can also be used as a powerful medium to control and weaponize us. In American Goddess, I wanted to confront both the roots of mythology— particularly those prehistoric myths that suggest there was a time when women held the strings of power—and the current use of mythological motifs to unite people in common causes that shine, like holy grails, across our modern societies. 

Who would have thought a simple walk on a summer’s day would spawn all that? Then again, that’s the thing about mythology: you don’t know you’re caught up in one until it’s too late.

—

About the Author

​Since studying English Lit and Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, L.M. Affrossman worked for many years as a journalist, author and dramatist.

Her internationally published debut novel, The Promise, concentrated on the interplay of relationships across the generations and the secrets they were hiding. Her second and third novel were historical and focused on intrigues and political machinations at the beginning of the first millenium.

L.M. Affrossman latest dramatic work is a comedy entitled, ‘Unfinished Symphony’ published by the theatre company, Schultz and Schirm, and she is currently working on a new play set on the last day of Shakespeare’s life.

American Goddess is available in hardback (£22.99) and ebook (£5.99) at all good bookshops and online retailers.

American Goddess is published by Sparsile Books: https://www.sparsilebooks.com/american-goddess

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing