Good Hope Road (41 page)

Q.
Good Hope Road
deals with the effects of a disaster on a community. How much of the book was inspired by the events of September 11, 2001?

 

A. The answer is twofold. I began writing
Good Hope Road
long before September 11. The book was originally inspired by a devastating tornado that swept through Oklahoma City the day after I had been there speaking at a conference and visiting friends. When I saw coverage of the tornado on the news, I kept thinking, “Dear God, we were just there.” My husband and I started trying to call friends and loved ones, but the phone lines were down. As we watched the TV coverage, trying to discern which areas had been hit, the stories about the community banding together gave us a sense of hope. There were so many powerful images, but one in particular stayed with me—that of a girl pulling photographs from the debris near a rural home and saying she didn’t know who they belonged to, that they might have been carried from miles away. It was probably only a minute or two of news footage, but it haunted me. Inspired by that image, I began writing Jenilee’s story.

By September 11, the manuscript was completed, and I was about to begin revisions. That September morning, the book took on a completely new meaning for me. In the wake of those horrible events, during those few days when we didn’t know what might happen next, I needed to believe that the human spirit, that a community of people, could overcome even the worst tragedy. I wanted to create a book that would celebrate the best in human nature and the ability of good to triumph over destructive forces.

 

 

A. I like the closeness to the character that first-person point of view provides. I like the feeling that you’re hearing a real person, not a third-person narrator, tell a story. I often get so wrapped up in the characters and their stories that I forget they aren’t real people living out their lives somewhere. First-person point of view doesn’t work for every story, but for many of my stories it helps create the impression of a personal narrative being told to the reader (and actually, to the writer) in a very intimate one-on-one fashion.

 

 

A. Well, I grew up in Tornado Alley in northern Oklahoma, so from an early age, I knew about tornadoes and the need to run to the “ ’fraidy hole” when funnel clouds were reported on the news. I’ve gotten close to a tornado or two, but I’ve never actually been in one, and I’d like to keep it that way.

The characters of Eudora Gibson and Jenilee Lane are composites of people I have known, and the town of Poetry could be any small town—its people old-fashioned, stuck in their ways, sometimes critical and stubborn, yet beneath their gruff exterior, filled with compassion and determination.

Like the people of Oklahoma City and New York City, the people of Poetry rise to the occasion when challenged. I hope that their triumph will leave readers feeling uplifted. It is always my intention, my desire to write stories in which characters grow to a fuller understanding of their world, themselves, and their spirituality. I like stories that end happily, and even though happy endings are sometimes criticized as being “pat” or unrealistic, that is where my heart goes as a writer, as a reader, and as a human being. I want to believe that all things are possible, in writing and in life.

 

Q.
Good Hope Road
deals with many important themes. Which ones do you hope will generate the most discussion?

 

A. The important issues in
Good Hope Road
are those that the characters struggle with during the days after the tornado—the need for the support of family and community, the need of every individual to be accepted and valued, the need to leave the past behind to move toward the future. The novel also explores the idea that God brings together people who can learn from one another, the difficulty of escaping marital and family abuse, the ability of faith to sustain people through difficult times, and how struggle can bring out both the best and the worst in individuals and in communities.

 

 

A. First, they want to know whether future stories will revisit the family in my first novel,
Tending Roses.
The answer is yes. The characters from
Tending Roses
make a brief appearance in
Good Hope Road
and are connected to Jenilee and her family through Jenilee’s grandmother, Angeline, and her sister, Rose, the grandmother in
Tending Roses.
In the future I would like to investigate the past relationship between Rose and Angeline and explore what caused the family rift that has separated the descendants.

Readers also ask where I get my story ideas. I have to confess that ideas can come from almost anywhere. In
Good Hope Road,
the impetus was a flash of news footage.
Tending Roses
was inspired by my relationship with my grandmother and the life lessons she shared with me when I became a mother. I found the germ of an idea for
Texas Cooking
, which NAL will publish in the fall of 2003, in a conversation with my husband about the old-fashioned wit and wisdom found in the small-town cafés of central Texas. The novel I am now writing was first inspired by my family’s move to an area that borders an intersection long called the Crossroads. On one corner is an abandoned store, known as the Crossroads Store, which has a fascinating and colorful history.

People also ask how long I’ve been writing. I always answer, “All of my life,” but I know many writers who began writing very late in life, including a friend of mine who was first published at seventy-five years old. As for myself, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write. My first grade teacher in Peaslee Elementary, Northboro, Massachusetts, first put into my head the dream of someday writing for a living when she wrote on my report card that she expected to see my name in a magazine one day. From then on, I hoped to write a book that would be published, and that people would read it and in response send a note, a prayer, or simply their good thoughts.

So, as I sit here on the porch writing these words on a quiet summer day in Texas, and as you sit reading them where you are, we are fulfilling a childhood dream, you and I.

1.
Good Hope Road
describes a community recovering from the destruction caused by a cataclysmic natural event. Have you experienced anything similar in your own life or do you know people who have? How might one’s experience of destruction caused by an act of war, as on September 11, differ from one’s experience of a natural disaster?

2. Although the townspeople have ignored Jenilee’s plight throughout her life, she instinctively comes to the aid of her neighbor, Eudora Gibson, after the storm. On the other hand, at first, Jenilee doesn’t think to bring emergency supplies from home to the center of town. Why does she behave inconsistently in this regard? Is one act instinctual and the other a learned response? Where does the instinct to help come from? Do other characters in the book have it? Do you and the people you know? How does one learn to become a caring member of a community?

3. The storm and the days afterward prove to be important turning points in the lives of Jenilee Lane, Eudora Gibson, and Dr. Albright. Why are these three characters so changed by their experiences? Can you compare their experiences to an important turning point in your own life?

4. Of all the items she finds in the debris, Jenilee is most fascinated by the photographs. Why? What do they symbolize for her? Compare what she does with the photographs to what people in real communities have done with photographs after great tragedies—for example, in Oklahoma City after the bombing of the Federal Building; in Littleton, Colorado, after the school shooting; in New York City after September 11. Why do you think that Jenilee feels, and the people of these real-life communities felt, such a strong need to publicly share those photographs? Discuss the impact of the photographs on the community.

5. At the beginning of
Good Hope Road,
Jenilee Lane is a young woman whose abusive family situation and limited circumstances have led her to expect very little from life. By the end of the book, she sees new possibilities for herself. Discuss the specific events in the novel that bring her to a place where she can see beyond the present to a brighter future. Why is her transformation so difficult? Do you know people like Jenilee? What efforts have been made to help them and what have the results been like? Why is it so difficult to change people’s expectations of themselves, and where does our responsibility lie in helping them?

6. For much of the novel, Jenilee is angry at her brother Drew for having left her and their younger brother, Nate, alone to face their abusive father and ill mother. Was Drew wrong to leave the family? In what ways has he both succeeded and failed to overcome the limitations of his upbringing? In what ways are the responses of Jenilee, Drew, and Nate typical of children raised in abusive homes?

7. Don’t read this question if you haven’t already finished the novel. At the end of
Good Hope Road,
Jenilee’s father is still very ill, but if he recovers from surgery, the expectation is that he will be placed in a veterans’ hospital for long-term care, thus freeing Jenilee and her brothers from his undermining influence. If a facility such as the veterans’ hospital did not exist, what effect might that have on the futures of Jenilee, Drew, and Nate?

8. Many of Eudora Gibson’s problems in life are the result of bitterly held resentments regarding past events. She concludes that God has been letting hardships come to her in order to prod her into “turn(ing) over the reins” of her life. Do you agree with her assessment? Why or why not?

9. Dr. Albright arrives on the scene with an unfriendly, all-business attitude, and shows little concern for his patients as people. How does he change in the course of the novel, and what specific events provoke that change? What changes do you think he intends to make when he returns home? Will he succeed?

10. The story of the moth struggling to escape its cocoon begins and ends the book. Why do you think the author chose to frame the book with this image? Is it effective?