Get Ready for Shandy Blue

Does art imitate life?  Oh, yeah, I know the question should be reversed, but I find events in my life flowing into my—“art?”  Let’s just call it “writings.”

Take, for example, my first novel, “The Moroccan.”  I was living in Israel in 1972 before the country became super prosperous for some people, where the caste system wasn’t based on money but on country of origin.  Moroccans were down at the bottom to be supplanted by other arriving nationalities in later years.  That was fun to write.

Then along came Melissa Abrams in “The Academic Factor, another spy novel.  This is a woman who lives to complain.  Much like myself.  As my husband has often said in explanation, “If she’s not complaining, she’s not happy.”  How very very true!  Who knew he could be so perceptive?

I think I married my husband for his exotic background, as opposed to my New York small-town suburbia.  Here was a man, born in Baghdad, moved to Tehran, made it to Tel Aviv and then to Princeton, where he had the good fortune to meet me. We married within two months so there wasn’t much time to get acquainted.  But over the years that followed, he told me stories of his life and that of his extended family.  I used that background as inspiration for “Flowers of the Desert.”  Goodness, no!  That wasn’t my title.  When it was published and I vaingloriously asked a book shop if they carried it, they directed me to the gardening section.  Thus, you can imagine how successful the novel was.

However, it created a volcanic reaction in a certain member of my husband’s family, who will remain semi-nameless.  At first he thought of suing me.  But then, I assume, he realized that, if he recognized himself in a totally fictional character, others might too.  So instead he sued my husband for stamps he gave him as a gift when my husband was twelve.  Is it any wonder that in the family he’s called Uncle Monster?

“A Mother’s Secret” was my next family saga and the most popular book I’ve ever written.  Even I cried while writing it.  It was supposed to get a blurb by a well-known author but she refused because it contained too much sex, which she thought would offend her reading public.  I think I shall give credit to the map room at the university library in Urbana for this one.

“Getting Even?”  Exactly as it sounds.  I wanted to get even, but I didn’t want to be arrested for murder, so I did it on the page.  My dear husband, the font of so much joy and laughter, decided to drag me away from wonderful Atlanta and move me to—Illinois again!  I thought I had a reprieve from death on earth when we left Urbana.  (See above about complaining.). In this, one of my favorite novels—by me—a guy gets it.  He spent his life betraying women and it finally caught up with him.  This was the only one of my books translated into Russian.  Something to contemplate.

On to the north shore above Chicago.  Does “entitled” ring a bell?  So I wrote “Caught in the Shadows,” my first murder mystery, which cast an unfavorable light on my new home town.  They didn’t even bother to review it. Tant pis!  Still available on Amazon, baby!

Then the fertile mind lay fallow—until I saw a notice in our very wonderful public library—no complaints here!—for a poetry contest.  It was a puzzle piece and I entered.  For some reason I didn’t win.  Bad taste on the judges’ part?  But one time, when I parked at the library, I saw the poetry society outside reciting poems to one another.  I didn’t hear the poems but the whole setting brought an evil smile to my lips.  Ergo, “The Wanker.”  This was my first self published book on Amazon because my agent didn’t seem to understand it.  I was celebrating bad poetry.  And I had so much fun writing said bad poetry that I laughed all the way through writing the novel.  Poets, be aware:  You are celebrated.

Now along comes “Shandy Blue.”  Yes, blue is my favorite color.  I give credit to the Art Center of Highland Park and my excellent teacher there Carole Pearlman for inspiring my love of—well, blue.  And collage and watercolor and all the other different media we used.  However, “Shandy Blue” is about oils.  There aren’t enough rags in the world to make me take up oil painting, but our hero in this novel certainly did, with a vengeance to prove his father’s worth.

More anon!