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Discussion
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Greta kept writing stories about her father’s side of the family. For some reason, she had found them more interesting than her mother’s side of the family. Maybe because there was so much tragedy on her father’s side, and through some sort of alchemy, the survivors were forever marked not only as victims, but as willing participants in their own downward spirals, which had little to do with the initial event that they felt made them so unlucky. Greta’s grandmother had died when her father, Ari and her aunt, Caroline were teenagers and their father had quickly remarried an evil stepmother. Both her father and his sister then decided to rebel against their father by marrying gentiles, which enraged Greta’s grandfather. He never really forgave them, although he continued to see them, but every interaction with him was a nasty, stressful event. Eventually, the marriages dissolved, because Caroline and Ari had started to look down on their gentile spouses, who had realized in turn that they were a lot happier being with other, less complicated and condescending partners. Both Ari and Caroline had one child each, Greta, who grew up with her mother in New Mexico but moved in with Caroline in San Francisco as a teenager and David, who was born when Greta was 11. David’s father William moved out the year Greta went to college. There was enough drama between these five people and their ancestors to fill an entire novel, and that was what Greta was trying to do the year she turned 27 and was a creative writing student at San Francisco State. But then she received two letters, one from an old friend in New Mexico and one from her aunt in Galveston, TX, asking her to return to the southwest for various reasons. During this time, Greta was trying to extricate herself from an engagement to her longtime boyfriend, and she was trying to end a sporadic affair with an unstable college lover. Compelled to go back to New Mexico, she buys plane tickets to Albuquerque and makes arrangements with her childhood friend Agnes for the two-hour ride to Los Alamos, her hometown, but she never arrives at the Albuquerque airport. This is an account of Caroline’s attempt to find Greta with the help of Detective Dominik Ramirez, who has his own complicated history in New Mexico and California. Together, they scour Greta’s manuscripts and diaries, travel through the western United States and interview her friends and family to gain clues to her whereabouts, and in doing so uncover not only information about Greta’s disappearance, but also about a tangled, dark family history.
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Replies
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Wow Simone, this sounds incredibly rich and juicy. I love the idea of “willing participants in their own downward spiral” — so counterintuitive and mysterious. Themes of rebellion, never forgiving, complex condescension in relationships and being just unlucky are all such compelling topics.
A question I have is: why did Greta move in with Caroline as a teen?
I don’t know if you want word choice level critique, but I might change “evil” and “stressful” to richer vocabulary choices that match the rest of this mouth watering description. I’m eager to read on about this tangled and dark family history set in such evocative and contrasting places.
MollieHi Simone,
You’ve set up such an intriguing start to your piece with this wonderfully tangled sweep of family history! It feels sort of like a big game of Clue where everyone is a suspect at this point. You already have me guessing and I can’t wait for you to surprise me. I love the dark mood you evoke with the “downward spirals,” the rebellions against tradition, the marriages that fall apart, the complicated relationships that seem to follow the family from one generation to the next. I also really like the straightforwardness of the line, “There was enough drama between these five people and their ancestors to fill an entire novel, and that was what Greta was trying to do the year she turned 27 and was a creative writing student at San Francisco State.” It’s wonderfully vague and so fertile with questions you get to answer. And then the mystery of Greta’s disappearance and the search for clues in her writing. The whole idea of digging into these diaries and manuscripts is so intriguing, especially since she was working on a novel so they have to deal with the fact that a lot of what she was writing might be fiction, which only thickens the plot further. I have all kinds of questions at this point about the letters, the “various reasons” Greta’s aunt wants her to return to the southwest, why Greta wants to break up with her boyfriend, and so on and am looking forward to reading more as you untangle the mystery.
JeanSimone: Is this the opening of the story? Or is it a summary of the story? I love the voice. I love the story that is told here—vivid and specific, though not yet played out. It feels like a summary, but I love the inviting ending—can’t wait to dive in!
I am humbling reversing my position on putting everything in the comments. I’ve just pasted my many, many notes into three people’s comments and it’s just too time consuming. I am going to upload the doc. I’ve put my comments right in the text in editorial parenthesis, underlining the lines I’m discussing. Next week I will simply track changes in the document. It doesn’t seem hard to open docs anyway . . . Thanks!
week 2 piece: You are so good with creating mood by place — suspended, sharp edges, piercing, harsh, imposing — I am already rooting for Greta and wanting her to find peace and sanity with her walks and her future.I enjoyed “its ridiculous red and white stripes” as a way of seeing Greta’s perspective.I particularly like how she is “dogged by a constant alertness.” I also love the description of “the monotony that would cling in a palpable film.” (ick!) I also liked the comparison with “gray as the concrete buildings below” Your dialog is very believable (I don’t like that fiance’s mother with her, My . .ugh, fake polite)and you have captured that post college moment of haphazard decision so well of career plus boyfriend confusion. (I’m wondering if you might make the comments from the rejecting boyfriend and the well meaning but wrong mother a little edgier and less nice? Only with the thought that it might increase the tension of relationships and create sympathy for Greta: maybe even add to her vertigo — just an idea, feel free to ignore!)You are creating a totally believable character here in every way, and I’m eager to read on — maybe spice up the end of this scene by showing us Greta’s strong hopes about this envelope and its meaning for her future? You give place such strong emotion, maybe you can do this a bit with objects, too?
Mollie
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