Where It All Began: My Southern Roots

Where It All Began: My Southern Roots

As a country singer croons, “Blame it all on my roots…” He might as well add, especially in the South. From the time we are children in small towns across the south, we absorb our surroundings, family, and culture. Some of us lived in tumultuous times and apologized for what transpired around us, even if we were not directly involved in the situation. 

We incorporate those same emotions, settings, and situations into our stories as writers. We don’t have to look far to find interesting characters and historical events in living, breathing colors near our homes. Could it be the humidity, the Civil Rights movements, or the multitude of talented artisans and writers who have gone before us in these places?

When I decided to write my debut novel, I knew I wanted to have a thread of memoir running through it. I’m an adopted child from a maternity home in New Orleans. I searched and found my birth mother and, through DNA results, my birth father’s family, as well. People are intrigued by my story and the entire mystery surrounding most adoptions, especially from the 1930s to 1980s. Every time I visited my maternity home as a child, my imagination ran wild as I wondered what the women were like who lived there for a short time, where they went, and if they thought of the babies they left behind.

So, as I began to write my novel, all those thoughts of a childhood in the South and my own adoption story came rushing back. My book, “No Names to Be Given,” has those elements and more. The premise is three young unwed women meet at a maternity home in New Orleans to relinquish their babies for adoption. They are expected to return home as if nothing transpired and build a new life. Twenty-five years later, their secrets are threatened with exposure…all the way to the White House. The chapters in the book about an adoptee named Julie are almost verbatim events I experienced in my life. Trying to remain objective and a little aloof was difficult sometimes, as my memories wove into the fabric of the story.

Research was necessary for historical events because recollections can be faulty. Even though I lived those eras, I had lapses of memories about fashion, liquor, places, and even dates of events. The settings in the book range from North Carolina to Alabama and Mississippi to Louisiana, all areas I know intimately. It was a sentimental journey to write the book and create more compassion for birth mothers who wanted a better life for their children and the families they believed could provide it. I gained tremendous respect for adoptive parents, as well. To accept another’s child as your own is no small feat but a worthy lifetime experience.

All in all, incorporating my deep southern roots into my first novel seems fitting. Writing about the 1960s, which to a child seemed idyllic, but in hindsight a tumultuous era is thought-provoking. I captured some of the Civil Rights conversations in the novel and how women were shamed by society and families to give up their babies. Also, I reflected on bi-racial relationships, the roles of men and women, and mores of the era. 

Young people today may not understand the times, not so long ago, when strict societal rules were commonplace. Unfortunately, most of us do not understand, either.

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Julia Brewer Daily is a Texan with a southern accent. She taught at every level from kindergarten to university and even shadowed Martha Stewart. She is a member of the Writers’ League of Texas, the Women Fiction Writers’ Association, the San Antonio Writers’ Guild, and the Women’s National Book Association. Daily is an adopted child from a maternity home in New Orleans and searched and found her birth mother and, through DNA results, her father’s family, as well. She and her husband live on a ranch with their Labradors, Memphis Belle, and Texas Star.

If you would like to learn more about Julia and her writing, visit her at www.juliadaily.com. You can also order No Names to Be Given, her historical debut novel, on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/0998426172, Bookshop.org, https://bookshop.org/books/no-names-to-be-given/9780998426174  and wherever fine books are sold.  Her second novel launches in August 2022.

Please find more about Julia Daily on her website https://www.juliadaily.com  
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No Names to Be Given by Julia Brewer Daily

“A gorgeous, thrilling, and important novel! These strong women will capture your heart.”—Stacey Swann, author of Olympus, Texas

1965. Sandy runs away from home to escape her mother’s abusive boyfriend. Becca falls in love with the wrong man. And Faith suffers a devastating attack. With no support and no other options, these three young, unwed women meet at a maternity home hospital in New Orleans where they are expected to relinquish their babies and return home as if nothing transpired.  

But such a life-altering event can never be forgotten, and no secret remains buried forever. Twenty-five years later, the women are reunited by a blackmailer, who threatens to expose their secrets and destroy the lives they’ve built. That shattering revelation would shake their very foundations—and reverberate all the way to the White House.

Told from the three women’s perspectives in alternating chapters, this mesmerizing story is based on actual experiences of women in the 1960s who found themselves pregnant but unmarried, pressured by family and society to make horrific decisions. How that inconceivable act changed women forever is the story of No Names to Be Given, a heartbreaking but uplifting novel of family and redemption. 

 

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing