Susan Streeter Carpenter's Blog
July 21, 2010
my website http://susanstreetercarpenter.com
... has a link to my blog.
The most recent post has to do with social networking. And with Yellow Springs.
The most recent post has to do with social networking. And with Yellow Springs.
July 8, 2010
For Those Who Don't Remember 1968 or Cleveland:
Go to the Cleveland Art Museum. They've been renovating, so the old entrance (facing the Lagoon) is no longer an entrance, but it still looks classical. There's a larger-than-life-size bronze of Rodin's Thinker. His feet are gone, blown off (according to the plaque on the base) by a bomb set by vandals in March, 1970. The vandals were never found.
"Never found" is an invitation to a novelist. Who were those vandals? Why would they do a thing like that? Why weren't they hunted down?
My novel, Riders on the Storm, figures out possible answers, telling the story of how peace-lovers who wouldn't dream of vandalizing the Thinker decided exploding the Thinker could be a revolutionary act. Their message obviously was lost, but in the process of learning their story, the reader may come to understand how they were thinking.
"Never found" is an invitation to a novelist. Who were those vandals? Why would they do a thing like that? Why weren't they hunted down?
My novel, Riders on the Storm, figures out possible answers, telling the story of how peace-lovers who wouldn't dream of vandalizing the Thinker decided exploding the Thinker could be a revolutionary act. Their message obviously was lost, but in the process of learning their story, the reader may come to understand how they were thinking.
Introducing My Novel (Take 2)
Riders on the Storm is a historical novel set in Cleveland, 1968. The young main characters are trying hard to change the world -- stop the war in Vietnam, create a just society, end racism and sexism, all those good things. But the forces against (and among, and within) them are formidable.
Why Cleveland?
I grew up and went to college there. I spent some time doing what I called "working on the Revolution" -- but the book is much less autobiographical than I thought it would be. For one thing, my characters do much more exciting things than I ever did: they get caught up in a shoot-out between police and Black Nationalists, for one thing. The shoot-out is real (I've done my research) but I would not have gone near it. I did go to Chicago for the Democratic convention, but I didn't get arrested.
Readers who lived through 1968 are enjoying the book because it "takes them back". These folks remember Carl Stokes, the Tet Offensive, the Assassinations, the Bandshell, and how it felt to be alive that year: hard to put into words. They say I've got rid of the cliches and made it real, which was what I was trying to do.
People who were born around that time, now in their late thirties/early forties, are more interested in the characters and the story than the details I tried so hard to get right (what was that wine we all liked? Why was it such a big deal to call long-distance?). They get interested in the love (and sex) affairs, the pondering of violence up-close, the question of how to live responsibly in a world careening toward disaster.
Readers now in their twenties identify with characters from a distant barely-imaginable time, here brought to life. They are facing choices similar to those of my characters: whom to love, how to find meaningful work, how to live with both.
Why Cleveland?
I grew up and went to college there. I spent some time doing what I called "working on the Revolution" -- but the book is much less autobiographical than I thought it would be. For one thing, my characters do much more exciting things than I ever did: they get caught up in a shoot-out between police and Black Nationalists, for one thing. The shoot-out is real (I've done my research) but I would not have gone near it. I did go to Chicago for the Democratic convention, but I didn't get arrested.
Readers who lived through 1968 are enjoying the book because it "takes them back". These folks remember Carl Stokes, the Tet Offensive, the Assassinations, the Bandshell, and how it felt to be alive that year: hard to put into words. They say I've got rid of the cliches and made it real, which was what I was trying to do.
People who were born around that time, now in their late thirties/early forties, are more interested in the characters and the story than the details I tried so hard to get right (what was that wine we all liked? Why was it such a big deal to call long-distance?). They get interested in the love (and sex) affairs, the pondering of violence up-close, the question of how to live responsibly in a world careening toward disaster.
Readers now in their twenties identify with characters from a distant barely-imaginable time, here brought to life. They are facing choices similar to those of my characters: whom to love, how to find meaningful work, how to live with both.
