Why does a writer suddenly get an idea for a specific
novel? A difficult question to answer, because it subconsciously occurs on many
levels. I’ve no idea why I decided
to write a novel about the South of the 1970’s, and especially one involving
anything to do with Vietnam. Even
if it was a time I lived through as someone just out of college and observing
it all (a total stranger actually proposed to me in the hopes I'd accept and he'd get a draft deferment as a married man), I don’t think I was at all interested in what was happening or seeing
it as monumental in the general scheme of things, at least not at the time.
Truthfully, the thought of Vietnam and its unpleasant
aftermath for many returning vets was a repulsive idea, as was the pain and
loss I felt for those I knew who hadn’t returned. Even today, I don’t discuss this era unless forced. However, in the 1990’s, I suddenly
found myself inspired to write this novel. I didn't want to. Knowing from past experience that the characters and the plot
weren’t going to let me alone, I gave in, sat down and proceeded to
do just that.
Jericho Road was the result.
The 1970’s were a time of change, especially in the
South. As I said, I watched from the sidelines. I myself didn’t do anything
so drastic during that period, except for three things. I married and gave birth to my only
child. To me, that wasn’t so much
drastic as a miracle. Also, I was
involved in the auto accident which diverted my life from its expected path and
put me on the road to become a writer.
That was done out of necessity.
The characters in my new book are more or less guided to
their destinies by an unrelenting and sometimes cruel Fate.
Wade Hampton Conyers IV is a returning Vietnam vet. His family proclaims him a “hero,” but
Wade would just like to bury the entire last four years and forget them…if he
could. Newly married, his
experiences in the war now haunt him and his relationship with an African-American soldier who died saving his life cause a rift between him and his socialite bride
who is unable to understand why the man she loves suddenly becomes a
stranger.
His younger brother, Heath is trying to fit himself into the newly-evolving world where nothing
seems to make sense anymore. Heath
is a silent rebel, planning what he’s going to do when he hits 21 but telling
no one, not even his best friend. He's a virgin, eager to become a man. What happens to him isn’t something he ever dreamed of and
certainly nothing he planned.
Wade’s sister Lindsey was a typical Southern belle until her
date decided to drink and drive and they both ended up in Temple General
Hospital’s emergency room where she’s tended by new resident Dr. Logan Redhawk.
Son of a Mohawk artist and a local girl who went North to school, Logan
is an anomaly in more ways than one. Not particularly liking white women because he’s often been “used”
by them, he’s attracted to Lindsey immediately and soon, the sparks fly. When he meets Lindsey’s father, even
more sparks ignite, but of a different kind, because Wade Hampton Conyers III
is a dyed-in-the-wool “Old South” bigot and he’s as unhappy as can be
because his daughter dares date a man who’s biracial…and a Yankee to boot!
Oddly enough—or perhaps not so, considering the changing
world into which they’re now thrust—neither Heath now Wade see anything wrong
in Logan’s bicultural, double heritage.
Eventually, of course, the three men find themselves on a
collision course as Logan’s presence strips away the mask of Southern gentility
and reveals a hidden whirlpool of adultery, bigotry, and eventually murder.
Setting a story during a certain period takes more than just
saying, “This is when it happened…”
Though I lived in the era I was writing about, I admit my memory had
dimmed a bit in the intervening years, so I did a tremendous amount of
research, ranging from what the army slang term for a helicopter was to whether
a specific song was released that year.
I went over dates for events to be certain I wasn’t writing about
something happening either before or after the time of the story. I wanted everything to be as authentic
as I could get it and not simply claiming to be set in that time with nothing
substantiating it. At that point,
I wasn’t really into the Internet, so I spent days at the local library poring
through histories, timeline books, and pictorial documentaries.
I will admit to throwing in a little “personal”
information. Lindsey’s MG Magnette
was mine. Heath’s problems with
his MG were also ones I’d had, because foreign cars weren’t all that well-known
in my home town during that period.
In fact, I was only one of two people in town to own an MG, and when the
clutch needed replacing, I had to write to London to get a mechanic’s manual
(and then translate the British terms).
Nevertheless, the mechanic put it in backwards because he’d never seen
such a car before! I also
patterned Lindsey’s choice of clothing after my own, and some of the outfits
she wears were some I myself had worn.
Jericho Road is a bit of history, Southern in nature because
that’s where it’s set, but also universal in the emotions its inhabitants
experience. It's authored by my pseudonym Icy Snow Blackstone. The real Icy Snow lived during that period, so I think putting her name on the book is only appropriate.
EXCERPT:
There were two framed photographs on the tabletop and she picked
up one. “Who’s this?”
It showed a dark man with an impassive, lined face framed by a
pair of long braids. He was dressed in a tightly buttoned suit with a high,
starched collar, and looked very stern and uncomfortable.
Logan took the picture from her, studying it a moment before
replacing it beside the other. “John Red Hawk. My grandfather. First one in his
family to attend any kind of institute of higher education, an art school. He’s
an original American Success Story. And these…” He nodded at the other
photograph, which showed a tall, smiling man, his long unbound hair blown by
the wind against the throat of the brilliantly blond woman whose arms were
around his waist. “Are my parents,
Richard and Carleen. Dad was the one who ran the name together and made it one
word.”
He picked up the photograph, looking at it with affection. “He was
a friend of Uncle Sam’s, one of his students, in fact. When Mom came to New
York to go to school, Uncle Sam wrote Dad and asked him to look her up. Guess
he kind of played long-distance Cupid. Dad’s an artist, too.” He returned the
picture to the sideboard. “Landscapes, mostly.” He gestured at the painting
over the cabinet. “He did that.” In the lower right-hand corner in large
precise lettering was the name Redhawk and directly under it the
stylized figure of a bird in flight. “They live in an artist’s colony in
northwestern New York. Place called Nissekequoqua Village.”
Lindsey studied the two faces in the photograph. Slowly, she
touched one finger to his father’s sweep of dark hair. “You look like him,” she
decided. “Except for the hair, of course.”
Logan smiled. He didn’t tell her that until he’d
entered medical school, he’d worn his hair in two waist-length braids. His
first-year roommate had been the most totally conservative, uptight,
anal-retentive white man in captivity, and the long hair had been a bone of
contention between them. One morning, he’d awakened to find his hair swinging
about his ears and the controversial braids burning in the bathroom sink. His
roomie thought he was actually going to be scalped before their suite-mates got
Logan under control. He’d worn his hair short ever since, a concession to the
white man’s world of acceptance.
“I’ve got a sister who’s a teacher in Auburn, New York, and a
brother who lives across the border in Canada. He’s a guide.” Both were married
to fellow Mohawks, neither feeling any need to try to enter the other world,
nor understanding their younger brother’s striving for a balance of both.
“How’d your mother feel about you coming down here?”
“Typically mother-like. Worried, of course. Wrote Uncle Sam and
asked him to look out for me. As if he’d be any help, living sixty miles away
in Brunswick.”
“And your father?”
“Dad sees it as a rite of passage. A test of manhood. If I can
survive here, I can make it anywhere.”
Lindsey looked up at him. “Is it true your mother’s folks don’t speak
to her just because she married an Indian?”
“Of course not, and it’s Native American,” he corrected. “Not
Indian.”
“What’s the difference?” She frowned and he thought it the most
endearing little expression he’d ever seen.
“A lot. Indians are from India. The people of the Six Nations
aren’t.”
“The Six Nations. Is that what they call themselves?”
“That’s what we call ourselves. We’re the Kanienhehaka.”
He expected her to make some other comment, about his siding himself with just
one people when he was part of both, but she didn’t.
Instead, she shrugged and looked at the photo again
and said, “Well, I think it’d be a stupid way to act. Why, I’d be proud if
someone in my family married an Ind--a Native American. Or if I were mar…” She
stopped and looked up at him and blushed slightly, “I mean…” and stopped again.
Neither of them said anything, just stood there, looking at each
other.
Logan was standing too close to her, and knew he ought to move
away. He could see the quick rise and fall of the tiny breasts, realized one
hand was even with her hip. He looked down at her, thinking how utterly small
and innocent she looked. And white.
“Well?” Lindsey said softly. “Aren’t you going to kiss me?” Logan
didn’t move. “You’ve been wanting to do it for about three hours now, haven’t
you?”
Logan shook his head. “Four.”
He put his arms around her, pulling her slight body against his,
almost lifting her off the floor. He felt her rise onto tiptoe and waver toward
him before she regained her balance and then the slender arms were around his
neck and she was pressing against him, mouth touching his in a very childish,
very chaste closed-lip kiss.
He pulled away long enough to mutter, “Lindsey, maybe we’d better…”
and she touched his cheek and whispered, “Shh,” and he kissed her again,
thrusting his tongue against her lips, feeling them part and welcome his
invasion eagerly. One hand moved to touch one tiny breast, feeling the nipple
quiver into tautness against his fingers. She made a little protesting sound
and raised her hand to push against his wrist but as it met resistance let it
drop again. Logan’s fingers encircled the soft little mound.
He couldn’t know what she was thinking, that abruptly Lindsey
realized that here was a man and not one of those silly awkward boys who
were all gropings and heavy breathing. Here was someone who knew exactly what
he was doing and what he wanted and frighteningly, he wanted her. She
knew she ought to stop him. She could stop him with one word, but his
hands felt so good touching her, making hot little shivers generate inside her
in places she’d never felt them before.
Just a little longer. I’ll let him touch me just a little longer
and then I’ll tell him to stop. But she never said the words, not even when
Logan picked her up and without taking his mouth from hers, carried her into
the bedroom.
Why was Greg here, now? Couldn’t he ever let her enjoy a
moment of happiness away from him? She wanted her moment. She wanted Dante. Why
was she fighting her desire for the man of her dreams?
