When most girls her age were dreaming of becoming
prima ballerinas, Linda had dreams of becoming the next Erma Bombeck, never
mind the fact she was a ten-year-old Puerto Rican girl without a long-suffering
husband or problems with her plumbing. But fate, (and her mother) had other
plans. Instead, Linda became a teenage beauty queen and had minor success as an
L.A. model. Forty years later and now more tarnished than her old tiaras, Linda
writes from her home in Orange County, California where she lives with her
husband and a dog named Dude. Learn more about her and her books at her
website.
In our eyes, our kids are
the cutest things ever, right? Perfect in every way; the smartest and the
sweetest little dickens on God’s green earth.
But what if you were meeting
those same children for the first time and through the eyes of someone else?
Would you feel the same way? Would they still be the cutest kids on the planet
with intelligence par excellence? Would you be instantly connected? And
more importantly, could you put an unfamiliar baby to your breast to nurse,
simply because you were told that baby was yours?
Such is the basis of my
book, Twenty-One Trees, inspired
by the story of my paternal grandmother who lost all memory of her husband and
four children after suffering a mental breakdown shortly after the birth of her
last child. No longer was she a married woman with four children, one an
infant. Instead, her mind retreated to a better time—a simpler time—the years
of her adolescence. And there she remained, young and carefree, her mind locked
in the happy memories of her youth, a stark contrast to her reality, committed
to a state run mental institution where she lived for the majority of her long
life.
Write what you know, someone
once told me, and so I tried to do so in Twenty-One Trees; writing about a woman who suffers from
psychogenic amnesia—much like my grandmother—a result of PTSD and postpartum
depression. The characters in my story are not cardboard cut-outs. They are
flawed, as am I. They are real—as am I, (if you don’t count the two perkier
replacement parts.) The heroine can be self-absorbed (who, me?) and my
hero would be well served to grow a pair, as they say. Their children
are not your standard Baby Gap ad kids. Instead, they are redheaded and
freckled, shy and awkward. The twin girls are missing their front teeth, and
their boy has a lazy eye in need of surgery. They are perfectly imperfect;
everyday kids like yours and mine.
I believe most authors leave
a bit of themselves on the pages of their books. I’m sure readers of my books
would not be surprised to find out I’ve suffered from abuse, spent time in
therapy and had loved ones struggle with drugs and alcohol (Or oddly
enough, I must have a thing for men in black Calvin Klein underwear.
Three books—three unrelated references. What gives?).
Writing Twenty-One Trees was cathartic for
me. Completed in just a little over three weeks, the story came without a
previous outline and from a stream of consciousness that felt as if someone was
whispering in my ear. It was written during a troubling time when my adult
children were struggling, and more than once I would have liked the option to
forget that they are mine, but like my character, I motored through the chaos.
I brushed aside the tears; I looked into big brown eyes and I saw adult
children just trying to find their way in a confusing world, hurting in ways I
can only imagine.
As I begin the second half
of my life (assuming I’ll live to be 116), there's a possibility I may one
day no longer remember my children. Not because I’ll fall off a ladder and hit
my head like Savannah, or develop psychogenic amnesia like my grandmother, but
because of the dreaded disease of Alzheimer’s, a tragedy hitting the
parents of so many of my friends, some forced to reintroduce themselves to
their parents with each heartbreaking visit. And so, in the meantime, I will
relish each moment with my girls and try to keep my condemnations and judgments
to myself because life is too short to sweat the small stuff, and if we're
honest, aren’t we all perfectly imperfect[?
Twenty-One Trees
When trauma gives Savannah
May Holladay dissociative amnesia, life as she thought she knew it is gone—and
only her childhood friend’s undying love provides any hope for recovery.
Buy Links
Linda is giving away a FREE
two-book starter set of her “Wit Lit” series, Middle-Aged Hottie, a tongue-in-cheek look at one woman’s
experience with life after 50. Get yours here.
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