Diane Chamberlain's Blog

Two Men on the Moon and Five Young Women at the Jersey Shore

It was June, 1969. I’d finished my first year of college and wanted to spend the summer down the shore, as I had every other summer of my life. I did not want to spend it in the ’burbs with my parents. It’s a bit hard for me to remember why I disliked my parents so intensely during those years. In retrospect, they were the best parents anyone could hope for, but we’d butted heads often during my teen years, mostly over our differing values.  The main thing that had infuriated me back then was that they’d become part of the White Flight from the city I grew up in and deeply loved–Plainfield, New Jersey. That struck me as unconscionable. They moved us to a lily-white suburban town that would never feel like home to me. To make matters worse, in order to be able to afford that new home, they sold our little Point Pleasant bungalow, putting an end to our Jersey Shore summers. (It was only later that they told me how heartbreaking it had been for them move, but that for the safety of the family, they felt it was necessary. Unknown to me, our house had been broken into at least twice, leaving my beloved ninety-year-old, wheel-chair bound grandmother vulnerable to an intruder. Only then did I understand).

But that summer of ’69, I still needed the Jersey Shore, so I put together a group of my friends and we traveled the hour to Point Pleasant and settled in for the summer.

I am changing a few names in this story for reasons that will become obvious. I might also be changing a few minor facts, only because I can’t guarantee the veracity of my memory. But I do know that five of us started the summer together. Four, including myself, were students at what was then Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) in New Jersey. The fifth was one of my long-time best friends from Plainfield.  That was Linda, a girl I’d always envied for coming from a family where she could safely argue politics and religion at the dinner table, two topics that, in my house, would inevitably reduce me to tears of frustration.

Another of my long-time Plainfield friends, Zan, joined us. Zan also attended Glassboro with me, where we’d grown even closer.  Zan was the kooky one among us. Kind and sweet, she rarely met a person she didn’t instantly love, but she was also . . . unique. One of my favorite memories of her is the day she walked across campus from her dorm to mine wearing only a trench coat and nothing else (if you’ve read my early book, Secret Lives, you may remember my character Kate doing the same thing. I owe Zan for that scene).

During my freshman year at Glassboro, I’d grown close to “Suzy”. Suzy was one of those light-hearted people who could find something funny in every situation and who constantly made us laugh. Early in our freshman year, she’d fallen in love with a guy I’ll call Pete, and they were already talking marriage. My Glassboro friends and I envied her for finding ‘The One’ so quickly.

The fourth young woman I’d managed to rope into spending the summer with us was “Maggie”. Maggie was a real sweetheart, quiet, calm, and pretty in a fresh, Ivory soap sort of way. The only virgin among us, she’d dated a bit in college but had found no one special.

The five of us found a second story attic-like space to rent several blocks from the boardwalk and beach. There was no air conditioning, but few places were air conditioned back then. We were used to the heat and didn’t care a bit.

Finding jobs at the beach in the summer was ridiculously easy. My four friends all found afternoon and evening jobs on the boardwalk, while I landed an early morning job in Marie’s Restaurant in the small downtown. Never a morning person, I came to hate that job, but I stuck it out. The location of my bed—tucked into a corner of the main “living room” space–was a problem, because my housemates stayed up late talking and listening to Janis Joplin singing “Take Another Little Piece of My Heart” and I couldn’t sleep. I remember griping at them, to no avail.

I was pretty miserable that summer, and not only because of my early morning job. I’d fallen head over heels in love during my freshman year. The guy—I’ll call him Red—and I had started out as friends. Both of us had been raised as devout Catholics and were grappling intellectually and spiritually with our doubts. There are few things that can bind two people together more than a spiritual connection. We grew together in our politics, too, incensed by what we viewed as a pointless war that was a genuine threat to him and the other guys on our campus as the draft lottery loomed. I was in love with him, body and soul. The only problem was that he had a long-time girlfriend “back home”. He never lied to me about her. Our relationship grew, but the girl back home had a hold on him that seemed unbreakable. I knew he was spending that summer with her, hundreds of miles away from me. Yet not a day went by that I didn’t scan the streets, searching for his beaten up white VW van in the vain hope that he would show up to profess his love for me.

My memory of that summer is that my four friends and I got along very well, but in retrospect, I think I must have been a bitch on wheels because of the emotional pain I was in over Red. I only know this because once the summer was over, Zan told me she forgave me for being so difficult. “I know you missed Red and it must have been really hard for you,” she said. Darling Zan. Everyone should be lucky enough to have such a compassionate friend.

It was a strange summer, in retrospect. A summer of deep friendships, hard choices. . . . and a singular moment that ultimately bonded us with the rest of the universe.

Many events stand out in my memory. We met a man on the boardwalk and he became a presence in all our lives, a thread that ran through the entire summer. He was twenty-six-years-old, which seemed quite old to us at the time. I will call him James. James acted as a sort of big brother to us all, a kindly, mostly benign presence, (though he did connect more intimately with Zan, who cleared it with me first, making sure I had no designs on him myself. Lovesick as I was, I had no designs on anyone other than Red). I don’t remember exactly when the truth about James came out, but we eventually learned that he was married to one of our old high school teachers. We were shocked and also a bit disgusted by his lack of respect for a teacher whom three of us had known personally. Yet, we never did discard him that summer. He remained a sort of counselor to us all. And trust me, we needed a counselor.

Shortly into the summer, Zan’s grandmother and aunt showed up to spirit her home. They’d received a letter from Glassboro stating that Zan would flunk out if she didn’t take a couple of summer classes. She was the first of us to fall and we were all sorry to see her go.

At the restaurant where I worked we had a regular customer, Stu, a man in his early seventies who would come in every morning with his ninety-five-year-old father for breakfast.  I loved chatting with Stu as I watched him tenderly feed the older man. One morning, as I walked the few blocks from our house to the restaurant, Stu was driving by. He pulled over and offered me a ride, and I happily got into his car in my white uniform and red apron. We chatted about his dad as we traveled down the street. Suddenly, though, he asked “What do you have on under that uniform?” He reached over and before I could do a thing about it, plunged his arm up the skirt of my uniform.Allthe way up. I managed to open the car door and flee, running the rest of the way to the restaurant, trembling and tearful and very nearly throwing up. When I told the female owner of the restaurant what had happened, she chewed me out for being stupid enough to get into a car with a stranger. I hadn’t thought of him as a stranger but rather a kind old man. Lesson learned: Do. Not. Trust. Men. Period.

We were quite cut off from news in our insular little beach world. We had our transistor radios, but no television, and at that age and on vacation, we weren’t interested in reading the newspaper. Somehow, though, we knew that two men named Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were planning to do the unimaginable: walk on the moon.

Suzy managed to borrow a teeny television set from someone and we gathered around it in our living room, moving the rabbit ears back and forth as the grainy image  came on the screen. I remember our silence. Tears surprised me when we heard Armstrong’s words about a “giant leap for mankind” and watched the two ghostlike figures bounce across the moon’s surface. I’d spent the last couple of years angry at my country. Suddenly I felt proud. ‘Proud’ most definitely felt better.

Suzy was getting sick in the mornings. It was James—older, maybe not wiser, but with more lifer experience than the rest of us–who was first to tune into the reality. Suzy and her boyfriend Pete had always used condoms, she assured us. Well, almost always. There was that one time . . .

She found a doctor at the beach and in short order learned that she was pregnant. A baby would mean dropping out of school, but she and Pete had planned to get married anyway. They would just marry sooner rather than later, she said, with her usual Suzy smile. Torn between worry and excitement, she called Pete with the news.

“Soak a tampon in kerosene and insert it,” he told her. “That’ll take care of it.”

There was no talk of marriage. Pete just wanted the ‘problem’ to disappear.

Devastated, Suzy talked to us late into the night, trying to figure out what to do. Back then, abortion was illegal in New Jersey, but I don’t think she ever would have considered it anyway. A few days later, she left the shore to move back home with her parents, knowing she would continue her pregnancy, Pete or no Pete.

A few weeks later, we met two guys on their way to Woodstock. They asked to “crash at our pad” for the night, which we allowed (having apparently learned nothing from my lesson with the old man in the car). Sweet Maggie was attracted to one of the guys. Without Zan and Suzy, we were down to just three of us, and we’d moved into a smaller space. This was the ground floor of a tiny house, the living room divided into bedrooms by flimsy walls that didn’t reach the ceiling. Maggie’s bed and mine were separated only by one of those dividers–which was why I could hear everything going on in that bed, even with the pillow squooshed over my ears.  And that was how I heard her turn the guy down when he tried to talk her into taking off her panties. From my side of the wall, I cheered her on: Maggie was not losing her virginity to some guy on his way to Woodstock!  The next morning, she worriedly told me that he’d ejaculated through her panties.

“Can you get pregnant that way?” she asked.

I laughed and reassured her she was fine. I wish I’d been right.

The whole experience had been too much for Maggie, though. I think it was the way we were living that got to her. No parents around to make us feel safe. Guys coming and going. It was just too crazy. So Maggie became the next to leave. And then we were two: mature, solid Linda and me.

Then Linda decided it was time for her to leave as well. She wanted to have some time with her family before returning to school in September. As for me? No way was I going home. I was holding onto summer and the Jersey Shore with all my might.

I’d been working in the restaurant with Katee, a young woman a year older than myself, and we decided to move in together for the last couple of weeks of the summer. Katee was a cute, petite blond from Wisconsin. We found a postage stamp of a room in Trento’s Boarding House, nearly across the street from the boardwalk. The corner room was just big enough for our twin beds and a shared dresser, but it had two walls of windows, and all night long, when we weren’t listening to the Stones singing Honky Tonk women on our radios, we’d hear the music of the merry-go-round through the window screens. Katee had a maturity that centered me, and of the places I lived that summer, the little room at Trento’s was the calmest and the most sane.

At summer’s end, I returned home briefly, then went back to school. I resumed my unhealthy relationship with Red until his dabbling in drugs became too much for me. Still, it would be many years before I finally got him completely out of my system. I dropped out of college a couple of months later, suffering from panic attacks and phobias. I needed the time off to regroup, find myself, and ultimately, grow up. When I returned to school several years later, I sailed through my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I’ve never regretted taking that necessary break.

Linda, the smart, intellectual, grounded member of our motley crew, went on to become a lawyer. No real surprise there. We’re still good friends, though we don’t see each other nearly enough.

Suzy went into a home for unwed mothers, but lost her baby halfway through her pregnancy. We lost touch with her and never heard from her again. I hope she’s had a happy life. I toy with the idea of looking her up, but I think I would only be a reminder of one of the hardest times in her life.

Maggie got in touch with me early that fall, when she realized she was pregnant. She could not tell her parents what had happened. The thought of an abortion devastated her, yet she could see no other path. She was very early in her pregnancy. In order to get an abortion, she would have to convince three psychiatrists that she was suicidal. I drove her to the appointment where all three men sat and listened to her sob out her story. I’m sure they didn’t buy a word about her “virgin pregnancy,” but for one hundred dollars each–a huge sum for a college student in 1969—they were willing to furnish her with the documentation she needed to get a safe abortion. I lost touch with her after I left school.

Zan dropped out of Glassboro shortly before I did. She held odd jobs here and there and finally moved to Florida, where she returned to school in her mid-twenties and became a serious, committed student. Shortly before her graduation, though, she was murdered in her home, a loss I will never get over. I’ve written more about Zan here.

I lost touch with Katee, unfortunately, but I think of her every single time I hear merry-go-round music. I wonder if that music has the same effect on her.  I hope so.

I doubted any of us had many positive feelings about men after that summer. Red had strung me along, toying with my emotions. James had spent the summer hanging around five nineteen-year-old co-eds when he should have been home with his wife. The father of Suzy’s baby proved himself a cad. Old men who were kind to their fathers could still be lechers. And men with power could forever alter the life of a young women for a hundred bucks and an hour of their time. Thank goodness we had Neil and Buzz!

So here it is, July 16th2019. It’s so hard to believe that it’s been fifty years since I stood around a tiny TV set with my friends watching what seemed like a miracle. I’m still moved when I see a replay of that grainy image, whether it’s on my computer or our big screen TV. But it’s not just the miracle of that moment that gets me; it’s the memories from that summer and the bond between young women that I will never forget.

 

 

 

 

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What is 'Stepping Off'? Read The Dream Daughter to Find Out! (And Win a Candle!)

Here’s a little video John and I put together to entice you to read my new book, The Dream Daughter. Have fun! EDITED: The winners of the candles have been randomly selected. Congratulations, Kathy Nester and Martha!

And here’s a yummy citrus verbena Dream Daughter candle for you! Just leave a comment telling me what would give you the courage to step off, and I’ll randomly select two of you to win a candle. I can’t mail the candles internationally, I’m afraid, so the giveaway will be limited to the US. Good luck!

 

 

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What is ‘Stepping Off’? Read The Dream Daughter to Find Out! (And Win a Candle!)

Here’s a little video John and I put together to entice you to read my new book, The Dream Daughter. Have fun!

And here’s a yummy citrus verbena Dream Daughter candle for you! Just leave a comment telling me what would give you the courage to step off, and I’ll randomly select two of you to win a candle. I can’t mail the candles internationally, I’m afraid, so the giveaway will be limited to the US. Good luck!

 

 

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Unveiling New Covers for my Early Books

 

 

 

 

 

Many of you know that I reissued my early books several years ago.  I decided they needed some updated covers, so turned them over to the amazing Kim Killion at the killion group. Kim had done a great job on my earlier covers, but I was still a bit nervous, since much of her design work is for steamy romances. I told her what I wanted: a more upmarket look with some sort of theme running through the covers. I think she knocked it out of the park with her designs! I love the circle theme that runs through each one. These covers are exactly what I was hoping for.

Even better than new covers, the books are now available in print as well as ebook format. Here are the Amazon links if you’d like to read the synopsis of each book (and the reader reviews). If you’ve read some of these books, I’d love to know your favorite!

Secret Lives 

Brass Ring

Fire and Rain

The Escape Artist

Reflection

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Launch Day: The Stolen Marriage!

Wow, it’s been two years since I’ve had a book out and I’m ecstatic! I’m gearing up for a busy book tour and looking forward to meeting some of you. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts about this story. And may I just add that, even if you don’t buy The Stolen Marriage, you must find it in a store and touch the cover. The raindrops are irresistible. Wait until you see them up close! 

When I first moved to North Carolina, I had already written three books set on the coast and knew quite a bit about the coastal history, but absolutely nothing about the “interior”, so I began reading up on various events that had happened in my new home state. One piece of history that always stayed in my mind was the super-rapid building of a polio hospital in Hickory, North Carolina by a community desperate to control an outbreak of the disease. This happened in 1944, and not only did the everyday folks physically build the hospital in a mere 54 hours, they furnished it with beds and mattresses and examining tables and linens and washing machines and kitchen items as well. Housewives cooked meals and sewed hospital gowns, and doctors and nurses came from all over the country to treat the mostly young patients. The event came to be known as The Miracle of Hickory. I was fascinated by the story of this phenomenal community effort and knew I wanted to write about it. But who should tell the tale?

Enter Tess DeMello, a sweet young Italian Catholic woman from Baltimore. Yes, she seems like an unlikely candidate to tell this particular story, but that’s what gets me excited when I write a book: I love putting together people and events that–at first–appear to be a bit of a mismatch. Tess is a nursing student engaged to a doctor, but she makes a huge mistake one night and winds up married to a wealthy Hickory man she barely knows. This man, Henry Kraft, hides money from her, sometimes stays out all night and shows no interest in making love to her. Tess finds herself trapped in a strange and loveless marriage with no way out. Not only that, but everyone in Hickory seems to adore and respect Henry and resent Tess for stealing him away. Tess is miserable and mystified . . . until the town builds the hospital and the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place.

I loved writing The Stolen Marriage. I think my favorite review quote is this one from the Library Journal: “Secrets, intrigue, mystery, love, forgiveness, and drama—it’s all here. And it is riveting.” I hope you’ll agree!

You can read the first chapter on my website if you like. And be sure to touch those raindrops!

 

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Would You Like to Win an Advance Reading Copy of The Stolen Marriage?

I have three to give away! I’d love them to go to readers who will review them (honestly) on Amazon when Amazon opens that page for reviews, but it’s not necessary. Simply leave a response to this blog post and tomorrow (Tuesday) I’ll pick three winners randomly. Good luck! (I’m afraid this will have to be US only this time. Sorry, dear foreign readers!)

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Rape, Race and Writing Historical Fiction

As I read the early reader reviews of The Stolen Marriage, I’m heartened by how lovely they are. At this moment, the story averages 4.3 out of 5 stars and my gratitude to readers who take the time to write a review knows no bounds. But there are a few very angry reviews and they have to do with a scene that occurs early in the book. The setting of that scene is Washington, D.C. in 1943. I’m not giving much away when I tell you that my protagonist,Tess, a twenty-three-year-old Catholic woman who is saving herself for marriage to her fiancé, has far too much to drink one night and ends up having relations against her will with a man she’s just met. Some readers are incensed by what they (and incidentally, what I) view as rape, as well as by the fact that Tess blames herself for what happens.

How I struggled over this scene as I wrote it!

In 1968 when I was eighteen, I spent the summer working as a waitress at the Jersey shore. I lived with my best friend Zan in a small rooming “house” above a garage. Life was very casual in that setting, and it was a different era. We hitchhiked everyplace we wanted to go and the thought of danger was far from our minds.

There were four rooms above the garage and we quickly befriended our neighbors. We all left our doors open for the un-airconditioned breeze, chatted daily with one another, and hung out on the shared porch. One night when I was the only person in the house, I was reading in bed, my door open as I waited for Zan to return from her job. A guy I recognized as a friend of one of our housemates knocked on my door jamb, asking if I knew where his friend was. I told him I didn’t, and we started talking. He was gorgeous. Insanely sexy. He reminded me of Mark Lindsey from the musical group Paul Revere and the Raiders.

When I hear about rape victims who can’t remember the details of what happened to them, I completely understand. I can tell you–in great detail–many insignificant things that happened that summer, but I can’t remember much about the next few minutes. Here is what I do recall:

I was wearing a blue cotton nightshirt that was decidedly unsexy. It had short sleeves and fell nearly to my knees. A cartoon character, the identity of which I don’t remember, was emblazoned on the front. I had not been drinking. As a matter of fact, I was a teetotaler then and still am today. He told me he was a medical student. That’s the only thing I recall him saying to me, although I have the feeling we chatted in a friendly fashion for several minutes. I was a virgin. My boyfriend and I had talked about “going all the way,” but I still fantasized about being a virgin on my wedding night. That’s how young I was.

What else do I remember? This:

He was suddenly on top of me and for the first time in my life I felt the alien sensation of a penis pushing into my body. I pressed down on his shoulders with all my might, trying to get him off me. Out of me. I remember the sickening realization that my strength was no match for his. It was like pressing against concrete. I’m sure I pleaded with him to stop, but I don’t remember what words I used. It was over quickly and I remember perfectly the smug smile he gave me as he zipped his pants and left my room. I remember, too, getting up to use the bathroom and feeling his semen drip down my thigh. I remember feeling nauseous as I realized that, while we’d been talking, he’d been planning how to strike. How to unzip his pants and push my panties aside, all in a few seconds time. More than anything, I remember feeling ashamed.

Yes, ashamed. Because it had been my fault, hadn’t it? I’d left my door open. I’d talked to a man I didn’t really know. I must have somehow given him the impression I was willing, right? It took me forty years to attach the word ‘rape’ to what happened. This was before the terms “date rape” or “campus rape” had been coined. It was before ignoring the simple word “no” meant rape. Back then, rape was something that happened on the sidewalk when a stranger accosted you. It wasn’t what happened in your own bed with a man with whom you’d been friendly. That wasn’t rape, I thought back then. That was my own stupidity.

The shame was so great that by the time Zan came home and crawled into our double bed next to me, I didn’t tell her what had happened. I never told a soul, and when, in later years, I’d have conversations with friends and the question “who was your first?” came up, it never occurred to me to mention that nameless guy. I’d wiped him from my memory. It wasn’t until a few years ago when our rape culture began to change that I realized that was what I’d endured.

So, as I wrote the scene in which Tess wakes up after having unwanted sex with Henry, I had to be a realist. It’s 1944. Tess is no feminist ahead of her time in her thinking. She’s a young woman who’s never traveled outside her Little Italy neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland. I doubt the word “rape” ever crosses her mind with regard to what happened with Henry. She is completely, utterly wracked with guilt over betraying her fiancé. If I blamed myself for what happened to me in 1968, I am more than certain Tess would blame herself in 1944.

I ran into similar problems as I wrote about race in The Stolen Marriage. For example, in the story, the 1944 newspaper carries the story of a white man and Negro woman who get married in a state where interracial marriage is legal, and then return to live in North Carolina, where it isn’t. Would Tess think their marriage is fine? In my heart, I wanted her to feel supportive of that union, but I had to face reality. Tess expresses her negative opinion of interracial marriage, not out of disgust, but because of the problems it can cause for everyone, primarily for the offspring. Tess is a product of her time and upbringing, and I had to keep that in mind at every turn.

But the wonderful thing about writing fiction is that Tess can grow and change. That, to me, will always be the point of a good story. The protagonist starts at point A, and travels an arduous journey until she reaches point Z. And she’s a better person for the journey.

My hope is that The Stolen Marriage will lend itself to some rich, intense discussions among readers. I can already tell from the reviews that this will be the case. Hide the weapons, book clubs! And perhaps set out some 1944-style appetizers to remind everyone that enlightenment is yet to come.

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For What it's Worth

Once a week, I play acoustic guitar with a casual group of musicians. We have an energetic leader who is gifted at keeping us on track, and we play mostly rock and roll with some country thrown in. We take turns picking songs from the songbook we use, and we all strum and sing. I’ve played weekly for a few years now. I’m not good, but it’s my only diversion from writing and I love losing myself in the music for an evening.

One of the first songs we played last week was the Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week”. As we played, it suddenly occurred to me that I was the only person there who was old enough to have been to a Beatles concert.

“Hey,” I said, when we’d finished the song. “I’m the only person in this room old enough to have seen the Beatles live.”

That got a chuckle.

Then we played a song we play nearly every week: “For What it’s Worth”. You may not recognize the title, but you would recognize the ominous lyrics and eerie melody. There’s something happening here, but what it is ain’t exactly clear. . .

“Hey,” I said when the selection was announced. “I’m the only person in this room old enough to have sung this song during a protest march.”

Another chuckle, somewhat muted.

We sing this song nearly every week. As we sang it this time, I wondered what meaning the lyrics had to my fellow guitarists. I recalled marching in Trenton, New Jersey, protesting the Vietnam War with my fellow students while that song played on our transistor radios, the haunting lyrics resonating deep in our hearts and minds. Although Stephen Stills was inspired to write “For What it’s Worth” by a different protest (teenagers fighting a 1966 curfew in Los Angeles), to those of us in our teens and early twenties back then, the song quickly came to represent our anguish about the entire Vietnam era. Paranoia strikes deep. My male friends were waiting for the draft lottery, hoping and praying their birthdates wouldn’t be assigned to a number that would send them overseas to fight for their lives in a war they didn’t believe in under the leadership of a president they distrusted and despised. As we sang the song in our guitar circle, I was flooded by memories of those times and those marches and the feeling so many of us had of a desperate need to make our voices heard in an effort to bring about change. I was quickly too choked up to sing along, thinking of the recent protests in Charlottesville and other cities–protests that pitted good against evil and–in the case of Charlottesville–that ended in tragedy. I may no longer be able to put my body on the line, but I support in every other way the people brave enough to protest for equality and justice.

Toward the end of the evening, we played “Wild Horses” by the Rolling Stones. I was tempted to point out that I’d been to seven Stones concerts by the time I was eighteen. Instead, I took in a long, steadying breath and decided to simply enjoy the music.

 

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For What it’s Worth

Once a week, I play acoustic guitar with a casual group of musicians. We have an energetic leader who is gifted at keeping us on track, and we play mostly rock and roll with some country thrown in. We take turns picking songs from the songbook we use, and we all strum and sing. I’ve played weekly for a few years now. I’m not good, but it’s my only diversion from writing and I love losing myself in the music for an evening.

One of the first songs we played last week was the Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week”. As we played, it suddenly occurred to me that I was the only person there who was old enough to have been to a Beatles concert.

“Hey,” I said, when we’d finished the song. “I’m the only person in this room old enough to have seen the Beatles live.”

That got a chuckle.

Then we played a song we play nearly every week: “For What it’s Worth”. You may not recognize the title, but you would recognize the ominous lyrics and eerie melody. There’s something happening here, but what it is ain’t exactly clear. . .

“Hey,” I said when the selection was announced. “I’m the only person in this room old enough to have sung this song during a protest march.”

Another chuckle, somewhat muted.

We sing this song nearly every week. As we sang it this time, I wondered what meaning the lyrics had to my fellow guitarists. I recalled marching in Trenton, New Jersey, protesting the Vietnam War with my fellow students while that song played on our transistor radios, the haunting lyrics resonating deep in our hearts and minds. Although Stephen Stills was inspired to write “For What it’s Worth” by a different protest (teenagers fighting a 1966 curfew in Los Angeles), to those of us in our teens and early twenties back then, the song quickly came to represent our anguish about the entire Vietnam era. Paranoia strikes deep. My male friends were waiting for the draft lottery, hoping and praying their birthdates wouldn’t be assigned to a number that would send them overseas to fight for their lives in a war they didn’t believe in under the leadership of a president they distrusted and despised. As we sang the song in our guitar circle, I was flooded by memories of those times and those marches and the feeling so many of us had of a desperate need to make our voices heard in an effort to bring about change. I was quickly too choked up to sing along, thinking of the recent protests in Charlottesville and other cities–protests that pitted good against evil and–in the case of Charlottesville–that ended in tragedy. I may no longer be able to put my body on the line, but I support in every other way the people brave enough to protest for equality and justice.

Toward the end of the evening, we played “Wild Horses” by the Rolling Stones. I was tempted to point out that I’d been to seven Stones concerts by the time I was eighteen. Instead, I took in a long, steadying breath and decided to simply enjoy the music.

 

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A Tale of Two Covers (and a Contest)

About a year and a half ago, I first saw the design for the hardcover edition of my latest book, Pretending to Dance. To say I was blown away is an understatement. I thought the image with that vibrant red dress was stunning. I could feel the movement of that dress, and the woman wearing it came to life for me. But once the book was published, I discovered a problem. “I thought it would be a book about dance,” readers would write to me. Or, “From the cover, I had no idea the book would be a page-turner.”

Hmm. The beauty of the cover and the prettiness of the title, taken together, gave a misleading impression of the story. To be honest, my editor had wanted to change the title before the book was published, but I was adamant that we keep it. The title has great meaning in the story, as those of you who’ve read the book understand. I am usually at a loss when it comes to titles for my book, but I had this one before the book was even written. I was so wedded to the title that  I couldn’t see my editor’s concerns . . . until after the book came out and I began to get that feedback from my readers.

So my publisher made the (very good) decision to change the cover when the book was reissued in paperback this month. Although the title is the same, the girl walking into the dark woods better depicts the suspense and mystery of the story, and I’ve been thrilled with the response from my readers. I was afraid that they would have loved the ‘pretty lady in red’ so much that this darker cover might turn them off. Their reaction has been the opposite. The new cover tells more of a story, and after all, that’s what readers are after. I’m grateful to my editor and publisher for making this change.

What are your thoughts? What does each cover say to you? How important is the cover image to you as a reader? Tomorrow, I’ll randomly pick one of your comments to win your choice of one of my available older novels. If you live outside the US, you’ll win a  gift certificate to the online bookstore of your choice.

Happy reading!

The post A Tale of Two Covers (and a Contest) appeared first on Diane Chamberlain.