Today
we sit down for a chat with Peace
Morrow, protagonist of the Peace Morrow Novels by author Sandra Carey Cody.
What was your life like
before your author started pulling your strings?
First, let me tell you that I was adopted. Not a
big deal, you say? Actually, it is; it’s an important part of my story. An
indomitable Quaker woman found me in the corner of a dusty shed behind a museum
and adopted me. She gave me a normal, happy childhood, but that didn’t stop me
from looking into the face of every new person I met and wondering if we were
related. The Dr. Seuss book “Are You My Mother?” had special meaning for me.
Having said that, let me add that, even in my most rebellious moments, I knew
I’d hit the jackpot when it came to mothers. When Ms. Cody came into my life,
I’d recently graduated from college, had a cute little apartment that I shared
with Henry, the world’s trustiest Black Lab, and was working at my dream job in
the museum where what little I knew of my life had begun.
What’s the
one trait you like most about yourself?
I love new experiences and am open to just about
anything.
What do you
like least about yourself?
Well, as you can imagine, the openness I just mentioned
sometimes gets me in trouble. It’s kind of a best of traits, worst of traits
situation.
What is the
strangest thing your author has had you do or had happen to you?
Working at my first job after graduating from college,
she had me stumble over the body of a man who looked so much like me, I knew
I’d found my father—the person who could answer the questions I’d been hiding
in my heart my whole life. Here was my chance to discover who I was. Trouble
was, he was dead, not just dead, but a John Doe—a drifter who wandered into town
with no identity. With no clue who he was, how could he help me find out who I
am?
Do you
argue with your author? If so, what do you argue about?
We had one big argument—and I won! Early in the book,
my author had the misguided idea that she could tell my story without letting
me find my biological parents. She thought I needed to learn the lesson that it
didn’t matter whose DNA I carried, the important thing was what I made of myself.
I set her straight on that, insisting that not only did I deserve to know my
parentage, so did the readers of my story. I reminded her that characters
deserve closure and readers deserve answers.
What is
your greatest fear?
That one day I’ll meet one or both of my biological
parents and they won’t like me or worse yet, I won’t like them. Maybe they’re
serial killers. I saw the play, The Bad
Seed, when I was in college. I know the risk I’m taking by pursuing their
identity.
What makes
you happy?
Imagining myself celebrating holidays with a big,
sprawling family—grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins. As an only child,
I always wanted more faces around the dinner table.
If you
could rewrite a part of your story, what would it be? Why?
Before the homeless man was killed, I had a chance to
ask him about himself and to point out how much alike we looked. If only I had,
I might have saved myself a lot of heartache—and maybe his life.
Of the other characters in
your book, which one bugs you the most? Why?
That has to be my boss at the museum where I work.
She’s stuffy and wants to chase away a scruffy teenager who hangs around the
museum. She cares far too much about the museum’s image and not enough about
reaching out to a lonely kid.
Of the other characters in
your book, which one would you love to trade places with? Why?
Believe it or not, Caroline Morrow, my adoptive
mother. If ever there was a person who knows who she is, it’s my mom. She’s
fearless, a Quaker, described by her peers as the most militant pacifist on the
planet. I’d love to possess her confidence and certainty.
Tell us a little something
about your author. Where can readers find her website/blog?
My author, Sandra Carey Cody (Sandy) also writes
the Jennie Connors mystery series. Her website is
http://www.sandracareycody.com and she blogs at a couple of places:
http://www.birthofanovel.wordpress.com and
http://www.classicandcozybooks.blogspot.com
What's next for you?
It’s not a spoiler to tell you that by the end of Love
and Not Destroy, I know the story of my birth and identify of my biological
parents. In the next book, An Uncertain Path, I meet a cousin and my
grandparents, part of that sprawling family I’ve always dreamed about. It turns
out to be a mixed blessing, but aren’t we always surprised by what happens when
a dream comes true?
Love and Not Destroy
A baby is found in a basket on the grounds of a
small-town museum during their annual Folk Festival. Twenty-two years later, the body of a homeless man is discovered
in the exactly same spot with an antique scalpel in his chest. Peace Morrow,
the foundling, now an adult working at the museum, is haunted by the
coincidence. As she tries to
reconstruct the victim's history, his story becomes entangled with her own
search for family roots – a search no one wants her to pursue. Peace's only
allies are a fifteen-year old misfit as desperate to lose his family as Peace
is to find here, and Henry, the world's trustiest Black Lab. In addition to
being a mystery, this novel explores the ways in which the present is shaped
and haunted by the past.
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