GUEST BLOG POST WITH KAREN HARRINGTON
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Doris Lessing once said, “The function of the writer is to RAISE questions, not to find answers.”
Do you agree?
Questions come up in real life so, of course, they are the stuff of good fiction. But when writers pose these questions, they often don’t supply concrete answers. They will tell you this is because to some degree art mirrors life. I think many books are meant to be co-written by the reader, allowing her to fill in her own answers.
And I like those kinds of books.
In fact, for my novel JANEOLOGY, most people ask me why I decided to write about this subject. I always tell them that I couldn’t get certain questions about why the maternal instinct is natural to some women and devoid in others. As a new mother myself, I couldn’t get this idea out of my head and I had to work it out on the page. I think I went into this novel believing I’d come up with some clear answers to those questions. Know what? After years of research that included reading court transcripts, anthropological studies about infanticide, case studies on predisposition to violence, and even interviews with Andrea Yates’ prison doctor; I found only suggestions of possible answers. And questions? I found more questions, most strikingly: Which is dominant: nature or nurture?
JANEOLOGY, features the mental decline of one woman as seen through the eyes of her once tuned-out, now bewildered husband Tom. Tom cannot fathom that his wife Jane was capable of murdering their own child. As the story begins, Tom struggles to understand if the woman he loved and lived with for years and the woman who sits across from him in a cold holding cell are really the same person:
I searched her eyes for traces of murder, believing I should see something black that belied her beauty.
“Why, Jane? Tell me. What’s going on because I can’t figure this out? Tell me what happened.”
She was devastatingly casual.
“I had too much. I was done being a mother, you know?”
If you think that makes YOUR jaw drop, imagine if it was real? It was. A young mother I read about had that same response when asked about her crimes. What explanation can one put to her words? The one I provide would surely be different from yours. And your mother’s might be different still.
As my novel progresses, Tom unearths details about Jane’s mother and father, and their mother and father, which lend clues to the theory that she might have inherited a predisposition to mental illness. Another theory is that because she was barely mothered herself, she never learned the proper way to do it.
In a small way, these explanations are a tiny balm to Tom, but they don’t do anything to lessen his grief. What is the proper response or feeling to have when your wife becomes a murderess? And is he at all to blame for not caring for her better? Not recognizing the subtle signs of her decline? When a prosecutor also starts asking these questions and charges him with failure to protect, Tom’s guilt multiplies. He, too, wonders if he should also share the blame for the death of his son. He wonders what his jury of twelve will decide about his future.
Murky indeed.
And, well, let me just tell you I’ve had letters from readers who DEMAND to know certain aspects of Tom and Jane’s fate. Demand, I tell you!
So I return to what Ms. Lessing said: The function of the writer is to RAISE questions, not to find answers. I agree with her. Some books are meant to be co-written by the reader. Some books require that the reader sit in the jury box and decide the fate of a character. And if you are one of the people who’ve written me, well, that’s exactly what I’ve done in JANEOLOGY. You are part of the jury. As life mirrors art and art mirrors life, it is you, dear reader, who must decide based on the evidence before you. What will you decide?
Tell me what you think. Do ambiguous endings frustrate you? Do they challenge you?
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Visit Karen’s website http://www.karenharringtonbooks.com/ to read an excerpt of JANEOLOGY. Contact her at kharrin2003@yahoo.com if you’d like her to participate in your book club discussion or if you just want to send her a note with your thoughts.
--
Doris Lessing once said, “The function of the writer is to RAISE questions, not to find answers.”
Do you agree?
Questions come up in real life so, of course, they are the stuff of good fiction. But when writers pose these questions, they often don’t supply concrete answers. They will tell you this is because to some degree art mirrors life. I think many books are meant to be co-written by the reader, allowing her to fill in her own answers.
And I like those kinds of books.
In fact, for my novel JANEOLOGY, most people ask me why I decided to write about this subject. I always tell them that I couldn’t get certain questions about why the maternal instinct is natural to some women and devoid in others. As a new mother myself, I couldn’t get this idea out of my head and I had to work it out on the page. I think I went into this novel believing I’d come up with some clear answers to those questions. Know what? After years of research that included reading court transcripts, anthropological studies about infanticide, case studies on predisposition to violence, and even interviews with Andrea Yates’ prison doctor; I found only suggestions of possible answers. And questions? I found more questions, most strikingly: Which is dominant: nature or nurture?
JANEOLOGY, features the mental decline of one woman as seen through the eyes of her once tuned-out, now bewildered husband Tom. Tom cannot fathom that his wife Jane was capable of murdering their own child. As the story begins, Tom struggles to understand if the woman he loved and lived with for years and the woman who sits across from him in a cold holding cell are really the same person:
I searched her eyes for traces of murder, believing I should see something black that belied her beauty.
“Why, Jane? Tell me. What’s going on because I can’t figure this out? Tell me what happened.”
She was devastatingly casual.
“I had too much. I was done being a mother, you know?”
If you think that makes YOUR jaw drop, imagine if it was real? It was. A young mother I read about had that same response when asked about her crimes. What explanation can one put to her words? The one I provide would surely be different from yours. And your mother’s might be different still.
As my novel progresses, Tom unearths details about Jane’s mother and father, and their mother and father, which lend clues to the theory that she might have inherited a predisposition to mental illness. Another theory is that because she was barely mothered herself, she never learned the proper way to do it.
In a small way, these explanations are a tiny balm to Tom, but they don’t do anything to lessen his grief. What is the proper response or feeling to have when your wife becomes a murderess? And is he at all to blame for not caring for her better? Not recognizing the subtle signs of her decline? When a prosecutor also starts asking these questions and charges him with failure to protect, Tom’s guilt multiplies. He, too, wonders if he should also share the blame for the death of his son. He wonders what his jury of twelve will decide about his future.
Murky indeed.
And, well, let me just tell you I’ve had letters from readers who DEMAND to know certain aspects of Tom and Jane’s fate. Demand, I tell you!
So I return to what Ms. Lessing said: The function of the writer is to RAISE questions, not to find answers. I agree with her. Some books are meant to be co-written by the reader. Some books require that the reader sit in the jury box and decide the fate of a character. And if you are one of the people who’ve written me, well, that’s exactly what I’ve done in JANEOLOGY. You are part of the jury. As life mirrors art and art mirrors life, it is you, dear reader, who must decide based on the evidence before you. What will you decide?
Tell me what you think. Do ambiguous endings frustrate you? Do they challenge you?
--
Visit Karen’s website http://www.karenharringtonbooks.com/ to read an excerpt of JANEOLOGY. Contact her at kharrin2003@yahoo.com if you’d like her to participate in your book club discussion or if you just want to send her a note with your thoughts.
P.S. JANEOLOGY is this month one of the Official Pulpwood Queen Bonus Book Club Selection!
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