Leaving Before It’s Over

I had a remarkably odd experience when working on my latest book, Leaving Before It’s Over. The novel is set in the mid-seventies in North Carolina. This is where I grew up and I anticipated a lovely, nostalgic trip “home” during the months I spent working on the book.

This happened, of course. The sights and smells of the rural South, the feeling of summer air literally settling on my skin – all of this became very real to me. As usual, I found ways to bring the food I remember from growing up into the story so that I had the pleasure of letting my characters eat all the good stuff I now deny myself. (If you’ve never had a Moon Pie, go find one.)

But in the writing of this story, something unanticipated occurred, as well.

I was sixteen in 1976, the year the novel takes place. One of the characters in the book is Lola, a 16-year-old girl. Her character and the seeds of the story originated in a much earlier novel that was never published, and while I slipped into her skin as easily as before, I found that I identified more this time around with the main characters in the book — her parents, Rosalind and Roy.

My own parents are gone now, and missed every day. Rosalind and Roy are very different from Mom and Dad, but in visiting the narrative day in and day out, it was as if, for a time, I could become a contemporary of my own parents. I almost felt them as bystanders watching the story unfold. And, as Rosalind and Roy wrangled with all of the decisions they were forced to make in the book, I saw how my own folks agonized over their choices when raising us.

I’d always seen my parents as larger than life. This book brought the details and realities of their time to me on a human scale. It was a gift really. Almost like sitting in a room with them again, but this time, with a much greater understanding of their inner lives. I’ve often experienced the feeling of escape when reading a novel, but fiction can also serve as a way to engage, as well – to connect the dots from past realities to present ones.

I’d love to know if others experience these things when reading (or writing) works of fiction. When reading books with familiar settings, does the “home” of past days seem something other than a distant memory? Do you ever mesh your newly acquired adult perspective with things familiar from your past to come up with a new respect and greater empathy for the people who shaped your early life?

If you read Leaving Before It’s Over, I hope that whether it is an escape for you or a visit back home, you will experience a sense of discovery. It is, I find, the best argument for giving your time to a book.