…About a year ago, I came into possession of some artifacts – a diary, letters, poems, scientific papers, an obituary – documenting the life of the person who inspired the main character of this book. Looking through them, I began to visualize a story filling out the sparse details of her narrative arc. I couldn’t get it out of my head, and by early March, I felt compelled to write it down. Which took about six months…
Introduction
Author’s Note: “What follows is a memoir I imagine the narrator’s real-life inspiration would have written. While some events occurred as depicted, most names have been altered and conversations are often invented. Where I lacked facts, I made them up. Otherwise, all this is true…”
Preface: “In 1965, for my sixteenth birthday, I gave myself a diary. Pink, with a locking clasp, it represented my belief that I was almost grown, and needed to daily document the finishing touches. A five-year diary, as I was sure I’d become as old as I needed to be by twenty-one. I filled it with frequent jottings, my mundane and romantic hopes and dreams. Looking back, I see myself progressing from childish fantasies, opening up to people and the world. My memory isn’t what to be; I suppose I should write it all down, flesh it out while I can. What follows, guided by these fading signposts from my past, is a story of those five years.
Sarah Jane Stein, May 25, 1983” [Presumed narrator]
Who might enjoy this?
Ex-hippies and wannabes; book club ladies; 30-something professional women; late-teen high school/college girls.
Main characters
Sarah Jane Stein – Narrator. Enters Radcliffe College (grad. ’71) in Boston from a Midwest public high school, graduates Magna Cum Laude, goes on to study maternal/infant interactions and earns Ph.D. in Psychology, becoming a psychoanalyst.
Miriam Stein, her mother; Charlie Stein, one of her brothers.
Michael Harrison, her high school & college boyfriend; Howard Lehrman, a Harvard Law student and anti-war activist with whom she lives after college; Petyr Cohen, a refugee from the Holocaust who becomes her fiancé.
Lizzie Upton, her high school BFF; Jeanne Heldman, Marcia Levine, Bev, and Leslie, college roommates and friends, Stephanie Seacrist, an ob-gyn who befriends her at a critical moment.
The work is structured in two parts, the first covering 1965-1970 (Chapters 1-6), the second 1971-1984 (Chapters 7-9). In its current form, it is 163,000 words, which is 450 pages in book form. I anticipate it will be cut down a fair bit before reaching its final form. This is a dialogue-driven work, with several poems and letters sprinkled in which move the action forward. The current events, cultural and political, of the time appear in the background, mostly in the first part (1965-70, aka “The Sixties”).
If you’re interested enough to start reading, click on the link below right…there are subsequent links. If you do decide to read on, let me know. I’m not averse to feedback; in fact, I’d appreciate it. Leave a comment on the blog, message me on FB, email me, whatever. At my current rate of final polishing, I anticipate dropping 1-2 chapters a week into this blog.