Leader of the Pack and All That Jazz......

 

I want to see these bad, bad, bad, bad men come to grips with their humanity. ----James Ellroy

 

 

Alessandro Gassmann

He stepped in the joint, and like sharks gliding silent in the deep, we smelled fresh new talent.

Every female gaze, including mine, immediately zoomed in on him.

The guys knew immediately—just male instinct, I suppose—that he was going to be a threat, he was going to be trouble with a capital “T”. They knew he was competition because his kind always was.

Louie.

His name was Louie. He wasn’t very tall. Not even particularly handsome. Waves of red hair, freckles. Not the average Joe we dames usually went for. But something about the way Louie wore his jeans and white T-shirt, something in his cocky grin, the savvy glint in his green eyes shouted Bad Boy. Very good bad boy.

For me, it was love at first sight. Red-headed Louie—I don’t even remember his last name—stole our hearts.

Louie, the predecessor to the Fonz, the copper haired Brando of Red Bluff Elementary. The new reigning king of Mrs. Smallwood’s second grade class.

One Friday night at the skating rink on Jackson Street, bad boy Louie asked me to skate with him and—there, with the rink dim except for the romantic multi-colored lights dancing over the walls and floor—I lost my heart to him. And thus, in second grade, wearing my blue rhinestone trimmed glasses and pigtails, I began my love affair with bad boys.

My preference in fiction—films, books, to read AND to write—are dangerous men. In my opinion, Scarlett O’Hara could have saved herself so much grief and time had she only shared my taste in the wicked pleasures of rakes like Rhett Butler instead of boring ol’ Ashley Wilkes.

Hey, let me at the script for Peter Pan! I’ll free Captain Hook and toss little Pan to the giant crocodile. 

In the fiction world, are these bad asses really…well…bad? Or are they just flawed? Are they tormented souls who, as James Ellroy suggests, we want to force to come to grips with their humanity through our writing?

Are we literary co-dependents where our lotharios, mob guys, street-wise punks, highwaymen and pirates are concerned, with an unconscious need to reform them?

Robert Mitchum

In true, everyday life, are these Robert Mitchum/James Dean types really what our hearts desire? Would that kind of guy really make us happy, or have we romanticized them?

James Dean

If we do lust after these menaces-in-men’s-bodies, even in our non-fictional world, what is their allure? Our own unrequited dream of living on the edge, flirting with danger, being the sensuous yet pure beacon on his dark, tortured sea?

Remember the song from the sixties, Leader of the Pack? Part of the lyrics, I think, symbolized a common conception of these misunderstood rascals: They told me he was bad, but I knew he was sad. Get the picture? the crooner asked her friends. Yes, we see, they replied. And, because he was sad, that’s why, she says, she fell for the leader of the pack.

Powerful stuff these scoundrels have, the angst angle. Is there room in our hearts for the guys from the right side of town, the guys who aren't sad and tormented?

As little Louie was an automatic threat to the second grade male population—by simply by being Louie—are naughty boys a threat to the real-life guys in white hats?

In one of my favorite films, Crossing Delancey, the heroine apologetically announces to the hero, You’re such a nice guy. His response? So pitiful, yet so true-to life—he shudders and says, Oh, what a thing to say! Bless his heart. Because she did not mean it as a compliment, and he knew it. In the film, she preferred the womanizing anti-hero, an arrogant ass of an author with an ego the size of New York City. Of course, in the end, our good guy won out, but it was a continuous, painful, uphill battle for him.

Crossing Delancey

Crossing Delancey may have been a fictional story, but it personified a true state of many female psyches. Even mine. I related to the heroine. Because that wicked allure, that I’m going to break your heart and you’re going to beg me for more attraction which is old as time, still alive and well.

Do bad boys really reform for us? Or do we write them because it’s our only way to mold them into the sexy-attentive-obsessively passionate-romantic-good and bad at the same time-always handsome lovers we want them to be?

Russell Crowe said, and I thought this was very interesting: I like villains because there's something so attractive about a committed person - they have a plan, an ideology, no matter how twisted. They're motivated.

Is that what it boils down to? Are we attracted to something as simple as their...drive? The powerful drive in these bad boys, whether it’s evil, just a little mean or just plain tortured?

If you love bad boys, if you write bad boys, I’d love to know why.

 

 

 

 

 

RED ROVER, RED ROVER...LET VASTINE COME RIGHT OVER!

 

I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.

-- J. D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

 

 

Red Rover, Red Rover, send that kid—any kid but Vastine—right  over! Oh, the memories. Do you remember that game from school? Even then, as young as we were, we were being conditioned to try to fit in or be counted out, even if it was just a silly sport.

I wasn't athletic. I was emotionally torn—half of me praying that I wouldn't get chosen on a team because I knew I was lousy at games and the other half of me was sad because I didn't—and I mean never—got picked for the teams. Well, I take that back. I did get picked. Eventually. By whichever poor team got stuck with me. My only hope was to be outed before the game was even under way.

Not much has changed since those days of being afraid of not being picked and yet scared of being picked because I knew I was going to suck at any game.

But why did I still pitifully have that deep yearning to be picked me for a team? Why, even when I knew I couldn’t perform, when I knew I'd end up running off the playground feeling all this kid-like failure, did I still long to hear my name? Red Rover, Red Rover, send Vastine right over. 

Same reason any kid did and does. They want to be acknowledged. They want to be accepted. As much as many of us—yes, even me—snort that we don't care if we fit in, we don't care if we're popular, I think many of us really, deep down, do want to fit in. We want validation from any sector of life we've chosen.

And acknowledging this to myself is why I cherish the Salinger quote. Because it takes courage to not want or need to fit in. To not want to be somebody is not in most natures. I reluctantly admit, it's not in mine.

I've been writing for as long as I can remember. I've been seriously writing since 2009. I became a published author in 2011. When I made up my mind to write with a goal of being published, I had big dreams. I had silly, unrealistic dreams. Dreams that my writing would be the ticket. That nothing else would really matter. That my pen would be my strength. That my writing would be so good it would sell itself.

I can hear you laughing from here.

No, no, no. I’m not saying my writing stinks. I do at least have enough confidence in my craft to think I have some talent.

I've had a hard knock comeuppance in this game. And, like those old days, I've found myself on the playing field, realizing that fitting in just might be crucial.

I once heard some writers with my publisher at the time being referred to as 'royalty' for their status as far as being popular. My heart sank clean down to my feet to find myself back on the field where being able—not as in just decent writing, but strong in personality—was going to make a difference in anything.

I've yet to put my finger on how this all works.

The bottom line? I see that to pitch me is a necessary part of this writer success thing. And it’s so terrifying that I'm tempted to rush back to the early days when I just wrote and I didn't give a hoot if I sold a book or not. I simply wrote because I adored writing and because I had something to say and I wanted someone—even if it was one damn person—to read it.

I see something pitiful about myself, something that makes that urge to do a J. D. Salinger and disappear. And that is this: I'm lying if I tell you I do not want to fit in. Come on. Even in the book, Salinger’s character only said he wished he didn't want to fit in. But he did, really, I think, want to belong. He did want to be somebody.

And so do I. I really do.

Let me tell you. It’s hard to admit that I wish I could be part of the “in” crowd. That I do think it would be so cool to be well-known.

No, I’ll never be that author who’s a household name. But I'll keep writing. Because I do love it, I can't live without it. No matter where it takes me.

I will know, with everything in me, that the 'not fitting in' will have nothing to do with my writing. It will not be because my writing wasn't good enough. Sometimes writing reminds me of this piano....

It just sits out in this foggy field, not being played. Because it's alone out there and not seen by many doesn't mean it has no beautiful song inside it to play. And it doesn't mean it doesn't long for someone to hear it. It does.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't Even Get Me Started on the Da Vinci Code....

 

You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. You see what is, where most people see what they expect.   -- John Steinbeck, “East of Eden”

I tried to carefully arrange my thoughts here. The last thing I want is to seem as though I'm complaining on an old subject. I'm just thinking. Out loud. 

And those thoughts are...

Opinions.

Opinions and how we're all entitled to them. And how they can send a writer soaring to the heavens or they can kind of hurt. Ah...but we should never give them the power make us or break us. 

So to the point I go.

I just read a couple of reviews of a book that I had read. What got to me was not whether the reviewers liked or disliked the book. Hey, do you like every book you read? Oh, hell, no, you don't. 

What did strike me was that some of the evaluations were based on what the reviewers felt should have been. You know, things that should have been added to make them like the book more. Things that were in the book that made them like it less. 

Aha!

You think I'm going to go on a rant about reviews, don't you? Well, I'm not. I love reviews. I love good ones. I even love bad ones. Yes, I do. Why? Because, good or bad, it means my work is being read.

E. A. Bucchiniari said, You can kill a book quicker by your silence than by a bad review.

So, for someone to read my book and to honor me with feedback, good or bad, is a big deal.

But, back to the book I had recently read. And its reviews. 

I read that same book that all the other reviewers had read.  I loved the book. The writing was stellar, beautiful, passionate. I did not even notice, for an iota of a second, the shortcomings that some of the reviewers had cited. To me, the work was perfect. It was unconventional, bold, refusing to concede to popular codes just to be accepted. It was what it was and it was fabulous.

And that is my point. Can you see it? How opinion really is just that---opinion.

A bad opinion of a book does not make it a bad book. 

How about some examples?

I've seen some awful reviews on some of my most beloved books. Books I adore, books I have read over and over, books I wish I'd written because they are so damn good.

Salman Rushdie said this of "The Da Vinci Code", Do not start me on The Da Vinci Code ... a novel so bad that it gives bad novels a bad name.

Of "Wuthering Heights", George R. Graham had this to say, How a human being could have attempted such a book [Wuthering Heights] as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery. It is a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors.

 It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards, complained Thomas Wentworth Higginson about "Leaves of Grass."

And, again, on "Wuthering Heights", the North British Review made this prediction in 1847,  Here, all the faults of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë are magnified a thousand fold, and the only consolation which we have in reflecting upon it is that it will never be generally read.

Mark Twain hated one of the Brontes' writing so much he claimed to want to hit her over the head with her own shinbone. Ouch. 

Yes! Ouch! Ouch! A thousand time OUCH! 

Ahem. So there.

And that is only the beginning.  So many citations from readers who absolutely hated certain books and yet...alas!...demeaned books went on to literary immortality in spite of those who did not cotton to them. 

Steve Maraboli says, I am self-propelled; fueled from within. I appreciate people’s opinions, but I’m not attached to them. I learned a long time ago that if I give them the power to feed me, I also give them the power to starve me.

I must emphasise that my thoughts today aren't only as an author but as a reader.

And my biggest point is, somewhere lost in all my rambling: books are written to the tune of an author's heart. They are not written to the expectations of those who have expectations for what they read. They should never, never, never be written in hopes of meeting anyone's preconceived notions. And readers should not evaluate what they read on such expectations.

I, personally, have found myself at times trying to streamline my writing process by putting out what I think will meet popular expectations. Bad, bad, bad. For one thing, my individuality just plain won't let me do it. Epic fail for me. 

I don't know if readers having expectations on books is a good or bad thing.

All I do know is that it's dangerous for an author's artistic soul to try to meet expectations. To force their characters into preconceived molds. To sell, sell to those expectations at the cost to the integrity of the book. 

Expectations. A good word, really it is.

But...

 

Grand Funk....Not the Railroad....

 

Depression is rage spread thin.  ---  George Santayana

 

In the films, actresses like Garbo made melancholy and depression seem so attractive. Even glamorous.

Well, baby, that's in the movies.

It's uncomfortable to discuss, but to try to silence it and confine it only seems to give it strength. For me, anyway.

To voice it, though, seems to lift the handle on its dark cage and releases it out into the light so you can see it, so you can face it.

If you ever suffer from bouts of—yes, say it—depression, you may sometimes feel the same way. Many of these feelings are continuous for some. But even those occasional times are potent enough to knock me to my knees.

For me, some of it is like...

Everyone hates me. Everyone is out to get me.

Every bad thing that happens is my fault. Somehow---even though it has nothing to do with me or is a million miles across the globe—it’s still my fault.

I cry.

Every nasty word spoken on the social networks, in groups, all over the world, is directed at me. A perpetual condemning finger is pointed in my face.

I cry a little more.

My writing sucks. I might receive a million fabulous comments on my book and I smile. But let even one mockery, one snarky comment appear and I plunge into fits of giant insecurity about my talent.

I cry even more.

The world plays favorites and I'm the oddball left out of life's game of Red Rover, Red Rover. Nobody likes me. Nobody wants me on their team. I'm nobody's favorite.

Tune up for more tears.

I don't fit in anywhere. Being a square peg in a round hole, for some, is just wonderful individuality. For me, it's glaring, humiliating case of not being cool. I simply don't belong.

Bawl fest.

Everyone's talking about me behind my back.

Major waterworks.

Every other writer's work is better than mine. If I can't be like them, write what they write, I'm a failure. It's no matter that I have my own individual talent. I'm not happy with that. No, I want to be the other authors.

Cry me a river.

I want to be alone, very alone, yet the alone-ness is unbearable because it leaves only me in room with that the entity called depression.

I crave support and a kind word but, like a vampire to a cross, I cringe and hiss when it's offered. Hell, I even bite the friendly hand sometimes.

 

As an author, I can't get recognized fast enough. Not only am I angry at myself for this, I'm angry at those who are recognized already.

I sometimes alienate those who want to help. Not even they’re able to be the comforting rocks they usually are. I'm too angry to want a Rock of Gibraltar. I want to flounder and lick my wounds. I want to feel sorry for myself, it seems the only sensible thing at the moment. See? Just another side effect—the sincere feeling that I deserve to flounder and sink.

It reminds me of swimming lessons years ago. Upon my sinking in the huge, Olympic size pool, the instructor jumped in to save me. Panicking, I clawed at his head to push myself above water and nearly drowned him. I needed to be rescued but I resisted it.

This unsettled state causes resentment toward things where no resentment should be.

And here is the thing. I'm making light of the effects of depression...maybe trying to make some humor. Because, believe me, its reach is much deeper, much harder to explain, much, much harder to grasp. And much stronger.  

I look in the mirror and imagine myself a prima donna. Me, me, me. To most, I'm willing to bet, it appears that I have a severe case of narcissism. Yet, deep in my heart, I know the selfishness is merely a stubborn clinging—a realization that I really, really do not want to sink. And I'm screaming, shouting, hating, crying, loving, fearing, clawing so someone will notice that I am adrift. I'd probably, as usual, deny the helping hand. Because, you know, as Garbo would say, I want to be left alone.

Maybe I do need to be left alone. But I don't want to be left alone. Not completely. Not always.

And, yes, solitude is a beautiful thing and often a necessary thing. Yes, sometimes that dark cage is a sanctuary. A safe refuge. A beautiful, healing place. I cherish this escape, this private mental hideout from bouts of depression.

I just leave the latch open.

 

The Important Review that will Never Be Seen...

Aunt Margaret and Sister Barbara

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.  — J. D. Salinger, "The Catcher in the Rye"

Every time I read this Salinger quote, I imagine how it would feel to be that author. You know, the author whose friend does want to call them up anytime they feel like it. 

But, then...

I do have that friend. I do have friends who call me up anytime they feel like it and communicate with me every day. I am that author. It's just that, if you're like me, taking yourself seriously enough as a writer, letting yourself be proud that you are an author, is easier said than done.

What does this have with reviews?

Reviews and what they mean to an author are self-explanatory. Some think it's that we just want praise, that feedback is a all about pride for us. And I'd be lying if I said that wasn't partially true. Of course it makes us beam to see our work acknowledged. And, yes, praised. Actually, even less-than-stellar reviews are...well...they are still validation that the book has been read.

Something occurred to me last night, though, a behind-the-scenes part of reader feedback that no one usually ever sees, publicly, that is, but us authors.

Any reader who "gets" our stories---our plots, our characters, the whole shebang---is cherished. That is what it's all about to most authors.

And that's what this blog entry is all about. The reader who can call us up, reach out to us, who "gets" our story. The "review" that's not a public thing, no gold stars involved, but is a review.

One such readers is my beloved Aunt Margaret. (her photo above).

I had given Aunt Margaret a copy of my book, Joseph's Coat. Honestly? I didn't expect that she would read it. I just love her and I wanted to share my work with her. 

So when my aunt told me that she had started reading my book, I...panicked. 

Why?

Because Joseph's Coat is focused a good deal on the Catholic Church. One of my main characters is a nun.

So?

My beautiful aunt had been a nun for eleven years, back in the 1970's. Maybe, without even realizing, I was basing this character on my aunt. After all, she'd also been a teacher like my character during her years as a sister.

So it was the proverbial pins and needles, half-way hoping Aunt Margaret would not even read the book. Would the book offend her? Would the nun in the book, who has a not-so-nice side, be offensive to her?

But Aunt Margaret called to tell me that she is reading my book.

And Aunt Margaret told me that she was enjoying Joseph's Coat.

Here's the thing...

What struck me the hardest, made me smile the biggest, made me almost cry because it was pretty much what any author wants to hear...

She cited a scene that had resonated with her. Something about the scene that impressed her enough that she has told me, more than once, how she loved it.

Now what better photo opportunity can there be for me to share this scene? A snippet, if you will, from my book...

The bedside clock chimed, an almost obscene sound breaking the comfortable quiet. Eleven O’clock. Kate lifted to quickly turn off the alarm, then returned to the warmth of the covers.

Giovanni didn’t stir, he must not have heard the clock.

Kate, lying on her side, her hands tucked beneath the pillow, watched him sleep. On his stomach with knuckles pressed to his chin, lips parted with a soft snore.

Without opening his eyes, Giovanni burrowed deeper into his pillow and murmured into the linen-covered cloud of down, “Am I snoring?”

“No.” Little white lies and such.

“I am sorry.” With his eyes still closed, his voice deep, groggy, he rubbed his fingers across his mouth.

How beautiful it had been, the way he’d stayed with her while she studied the portfolio of plans for the Christmas pageant. Kate knew he’d been tired but he never let on to her that he was. It had been obvious, though, in the way he stifled yawns, the cups of coffee he consumed.

Even as he drank the coffee and talked excitedly with her, he occasionally mentioned how he ought to stop, that he had a lunch meeting the next day. But, when Kate glanced at the kitchen clock, reminded him of the meeting, he ignored her. And she knew, painfully so, that her interest in the plans, at her interest in anything, had awakened his soul again, just as it had hers. She knew, too, that he probably feared the moment might pass and he was afraid to walk away from it to go to bed.

This morning, even though he had a meeting soon, she didn’t wake him. He might be upset that she would let him miss a business appointment, but she didn’t care. The man asleep beside her, his wild curls dark against the white of the pillowcase, had worried so about her, even during his own mourning. Making certain during this agonizing year that she never sank and drowned beneath the misery. Without even realizing, he’d saved her life.

So, damn the meeting.

“Then why are you staring at me?” Giovanni whispered, his eyes half-open. Yawning, he shifted onto his back, rested his hands on his chest and squinted up at her. “If I am not snoring?”

As always, he’d sensed her watching him.

To get to the point of this blog entry...

Yes, sure, we writers long for reviews. Maybe not for reasons most would suspect. Reviews are proof that the book has been read. They are proof that the reader liked---or disliked---our work. But they read it. 

But...

There are those private "reviews" that are as valid, that no one but the author will ever hear. The reviews that will never be seen.

When Aunt Margaret, so passionately, let me know that the imagery was vivid enough that she still thought about it; and the fact that my character, just like my aunt or I would do, makes coffee in times of quiet. And my aunt loved that my characters do down a lot of java.

See? Those words from Aunt Margaret, from such an unexpected source, were the proverbial writers' high. 

And the biggest thing this has revealed to me...about myself as writer? 

That reviews are reviews, no matter where they come from, not matter how they're delivered. That sometimes, the reader you think would be least likely to enjoy your story might just surprise you.

Still biting my nails, waiting for Aunt Margaret's verdict on Sister Delphine.

 

 

 

The Purse...

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.   -- Epicurus

 

I'd like to say I was just a tiny tyke, not old enough to know better, when The Great Purse Affair happened.

But that would be a lie.

It was a lean Christmas for my family. Financially, that is. 1960-something. At the time, Daddy worked two jobs. By day, he was a postal carrier (pre-government postal service) bringing in a whopping $2.15 an hour. Nights, he pushed a broom as a janitor at Jackson Intermediate School.

In my kid mind, Daddy's long hours meant nothing to me. It was just what fathers were supposed to do. I mean, what did I know of employment, supporting a family—feeding them, clothing them, the roofs over their heads and all that stuff? In that clueless brain of mine, it was all just…there. And that was the good thing about families who loved us. It was just there, always, and we never worried because parents did all the things they were supposed to do to make sure of that.   

Even though I had no allowance like some children, even though my only spending money came from scouting for empty coke bottles and cashing in the deposits for pennies and nickels, I still had no concept of all that income-to-debt ratio crap. Like I said, my parents kept me fed, kept clothes on my back, and life was as is should have been.

One year my coat was a fabulous red leather number that had been an item getting ready to be disposed of from the school's Lost and Found. The jacket was magnificent, and it didn't dawn on me to be embarrassed of its origin. Nobody else knew where it came from. It was pretty. It looked cool on me. No worries.

But, like with everything else in my young-and-oblivious-to-financial-things life, I still had no clue as to how difficult it must have been for my parents to supply even the simplest basics of their children's needs.

Never did it occur to me to wonder what must have been going through their minds. That maybe it bothered them to not be able to afford expensive gifts like our friends were going to get. Or that, while our pals would wake up to a living room full of goodies, we would wake up to one gift each.

If only I had been able to see into their parental minds. If only. 

This particular Christmas morning, my sister, brother and I woke up to find one gift for each under the tree. 

I can't even remember what my little brother received from 'Santa', I only remember what my sister and I received. 

Purses.

And, you know, those pretty handbags were very nice. Looking back, I realize they hadn't been cheap.

Even though only one gift each, the purses still had been a sacrifice for my parents.

Through the years, I've agonized over that Christmas morning and the way it went down.

More times than I can count, I’ve tortured myself over the fact that I saw the happiness, the pride in my parent's eyes when we spotted our purses under the tree. I saw the expectant smiles on their faces.

I saw all this. 

I saw it and yet...

My sister's purse was bigger than mine. Much bigger. 

She was older than me, she had already started high school. Girls her age carried big bags. The large purse was the style. It was suitable for her.

I, who was still in middle school, was given a much smaller purse. More suitable for a girl my age. A lovely purse it was. Brown leather. 

But it was smaller than my sister's. It was a kid-sized purse, and hers was so sophisticated, elegant. Her purse was more mature. 

Now here is where I'm ashamed to tell more. But, to say it out loud, I find some sort of reconciling for my heart. Accountability, maybe.

What did I do when I saw my purse? I cried. Damn. Like a spoiled, immature brat, I cried.

How many times I’ve prayed for a time machine to take me back to that moment between my mother's happy smile and my ugly tears! To please, please, please let me do it again! To do it right.

Yes, I actually pitched a pure-d hissy fit. If I remember correctly, I even said I hated my purse. I was so overcome with jealousy. I wanted a purse just like my sister's.I ruined that beautiful moment—the pride that came with my parent's sacrifice—by being jealous. 

I threw such a tantrum that my mother promised to take me to the store after Christmas to exchange my kiddie bag for a more mature, giant bag like my sister's.

 And she did.

I returned to school with that huge purse and I was happy that I had won, right?

No.

How stupid I looked, dragging that monster bag around the halls of San Jacinto Intermediate School! Of course, I didn't realize that at the time. Only later, years later, imagining the silly little girl with the enormous purse. Oh, hell, it was probably one hundred times too big for the miniscule amount of junk I toted.

The funny thing?

My mother didn’t really remember the incident at all. In my overwhelming guilt, I reminded her of it years later. Even when I reminded her, she laughed. And, for years, she thought of it with humor. I do, too. Sort of. But another part of me aches horribly every time I recall the shock, followed by disappointment, on her face when I turned on the waterworks that Christmas.

So why am I telling this now? Is there a point to this?

I guess. I don’t know. Maybe that, since that holiday so, so long ago, I’ve lost so many family members. I’ve lost my parents, I’ve lost my own child, I’ve lost the sister who got the big-girl purse, and my younger brother.

And I see how very unimportant the gifting part of life really is.

The Great Purse Affair has tormented me all these years. That longing to re-do moments in time, to have known what I know now—having been a parent myself—about love and sacrifice and appreciation. I would love to say that the purse meltdown was the only time I ever pitched a jealous fit or was childishly unhappy over anything I didn’t like. It wasn’t, though.

I can't undo the horrible reaction to the purse or the tantrums over disappointments in my life when I was too young to understand the sacrifices behind them. And maybe I don't really want to. As long as I feel that moment and feel the big wrongness of that long-ago reaction, I'll mentally tag myself to always be grateful for those who love me.

The Road to Flawdom....

 

She broke your throne, and she cut your hair, and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah....     --- Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen

The lyrics of Leonard Cohen's song, Hallelujah are raw, pure, and nearly double me over with emotion. A lament of pain, disappointment, and things not so pretty in relationships.

Much of the lyrics, such as, I've heard there was a secret chord, that David played, and it pleased the Lord...and...You saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you...and especially, the baffled king composing Hallelujah speak of King David---themes of seduction, temptation, betrayal, lust and...cheating.

Infidelity.

It strikes a chord in me regarding struggles to meld myself into the romanctic genres, to the traditional guidelines of romance writing.

When once I hinted that the hero in my novel had cheated, I was quickly advised, readers don't like cheaters.

Readers don't like...

So this began my grappling with writing in the real world. Gone were the days of yore, when I first began to write. When my characters could do anything they pleased because nobody could see them except me. They were protected by that wonderful privacy shield of writing-just-for-me.

Now, it's beyond the phase of staying in the guidelines and into issues of what readers do and don't like.

It is confusing. It is intimidating.

Readers DO, overwhelmingly, like flawed characters. The demand is for flawed characters. These flaws include bitter dispositions, substance abuse, issues of past abuse, selling themselves for sex, using other characters to get what they want, physical handicaps. Sometimes even just being plain creeps for no good reason. Real life issues.

But...

The one flaw, one of the most common imperfections in the real world of relationships---cheating---is, I am told, often taboo to write. The never-never-land of writing, the forbidden zone. It's a major real life thing, but, in fiction, it is a touchy subject.

Once, during a discussion on a forum, a heated debate erupted over the subject, with the majority rising up in arms over cheating main characters. The debate became vicious, names were called, cuss words flew like crazy. It was a hot, hot, hot button. The voice was clear, the people had spoken: NO CHEATING in romance fiction.

Which brings me back to Kind David. An icon in religion, a renowned man of valor and passion in history, a powerful king, a poet, a lover, a husband, a father, a...cheater.

King David Spies on Bathsheba

Wait. It gets worse. Not only did David lust for a married woman, but his passion drove him to commit the hugest crime of all---he ordered the murder of Bathsheba's husband. Talk about drama. But it was real. It was no make-believe fictional novel, it was real life.

Cheating. On a big scale.

And yet? David is beloved in history. His poetry, The Psalms, are revered. History adores the man. David was even called a man after God's own heart.

As powerful as he was, this king of Israel, he was flawed. In my mind, he's very likely one of the most perfect examples of flawed human nature I can think of.

And what about fictional characters who cheat?

What about ol' Scarlett O'Hara?

Gone with the Wind

Poor Scarlett. She never got her chance to cheat, but she sure wanted to. I say poor Scarlett because, when she and Ashley were spotted in an embrace, Ms. O'Hara was forced to wear that deliciously devilish red dress as a sign of the harlot. And, yet, Mr. Wilkes---who was just as guilty as she was---got a loving salute of For He's A Jolly Good Fellow. Double standard, but that's another story.

What about Fatal Attraction?

Fatal Attraction

Okay, so that was a case of cheating gone very wrong. But the hero, who blatantly cheated on his lovely, always-smiling wife still managed to be the hero in the end. He fell from his heroic throne for a minute, but regained his noble status before all was said and done. He'd cheated, but he was forgiven. 

One of my very, very favorite films, How to Make An American Quilt, deals with another aspect of cheating. A young fiance having a last-minute fling, therefore cheating on her fiance, with a steamy Latino.

How to Make an American Quilt

And one of the most loved infidelity films/novels of all, The Bridges of Madison County. We, the audience, loved the heroine. We loved her lover. We rooted for them. But here's the thing. There was no abuse in her marriage, no reason to justify her cheating, it just happened. But we loved her. We loved him. Because we did love them, we didn't call it taboo, we didn't demand justification. We just accepted it and, in our minds, we cheated right along with them. 

Bridges of Madison County

And don't forget lovable cheatster, Don Draper, from the television series, Mad Men. Oh, my. Mr. Draper has had more extra-marital affairs and rolls in the hay than the modern calculator can compute. And get this. He's not even remorseful. Oh, wait, he might have been apologetic for a minute when he got caught. And yet? The audience loves the man. Somehow, he wriggles out from under his girlfriends' beds the unscathed, beloved hero we just can't stay mad at.

Mad Men

Oddly, Don Draper is one of my favorite fictional characters. The writers produced a realistic, extremely unapologetic image of a human complete with every flaw imaginable. Everybody knows a Don Draper. Every office has one. Why pretend the Drapers of the world do not exist, and why pretend they can't actually be just...people?

Is it the fact these films/novels are mainstream that lets them slide under the Cheating Hero/Heroine Radar? Is it just romance fiction where infidelity is not accepted as a true human error and embraced as a flaw?

I'm not arguing. I'm just confused. I'm not condoning cheating. I'm just frustrated at tiptoeing through the land mines of do's and don'ts in fiction, at the codes used to make the decisions as to which human failures and flaws are forgivable by the reader.

As for David, the King? Even after committing adultery, he was forgiven by God. Oh, the powerful Israelite suffered hugely for his mistake. But he was forgiven.

Although he's no fictional character, he still remains one of the most potent examples of a human to commit such crimes against humanity---which included murder---and still somehow, because we were endeared to him, he emerged from the rubble as the hero.

To me, flaws aren't limited to guidelines dictated by a genre. They are as real as the flaws we do create for fiction and romance. 

So my question? Can a hero or heroine commit the act of adultery and still manage to redeem themselves?

I believe they can. It is a challenge, I'll admit, to bring them around full circle. And, if an author can convincingly meet that challenge---to deliver this situation with the delicacy necessary to handle the highly charged emotional explosive it is---then I see it as a human flaw that has its place in romantic fiction.

Have you read books that contain cheating characters? What did you think of them? Were you able to forgive them?