What A Character
We’re doing something a little different for March. I’ve had the opportunity to introduce all of you to my favorite books and authors but it’s time to talk characters. There are certain characters that I never tire of introducing to readers who don’t know them so I chose three special people to land in your inbox today. I also threw in a movie recommendation for any music lovers.
Don’t forget! You can find my short novel, Tania the Revolutionary, on Amazon for Kindle and paperback or Barnes & Noble for eBook.
Three people I never get tired of being with or talking about are Maria Carter from Joan Didion's 1970 Hollywood novel PLAY IT AS IT LAYS, John Harper from Davis Grubb's 1953 novel THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, and Hazel Motes from Flannery O'Connor's 1952 novel WISE BLOOD.
Maria (pronounced Muh-wry-uh) is living on the edge in Hollywood in the 1960s because her infant daughter is in the custody of her controlling movie-director husband, Carter, from whom she is separated. And most of Maria's friends work with Carter and so are passively or actively helping him keep Maria from regaining custody. Though they claim Maria is unstable and unreliable, watching her as she outwits, outclasses and outlasts them all never gets old.
John Harper is just a child but has already seen his father dragged away by police to be tried and then executed for a double homicide. And he has been unable to save his mother from being murdered by his new stepfather -- and he isn't even ten years old. I never tire of watching John use a mix of cunning and nerve and endurance to try to save himself and his little sister, Pearl, from also becoming their stepfather's victims. John's courage, born of dire necessity, is amazing.
Hazel or Haze Motes is just out of the Army and coming home to a tiny backwater town in the deep, deep South and he is a fugitive. And the person or entity pursuing him has been after him since birth and it is Jesus Christ. Everyone says Haze looks like a preacher, but that is the last thing he wants. His objection to Jesus is that Jesus died for his sins without first asking if that was something Haze wanted. Now he wants to be free but can't find a way and it's simply very moving to watch as he conceives more and more desperate ploys to deprogram and escape.
This month’s movie rec is Underground Inc: The Rise & Fall of Alternative Rock. It’s about the feeding frenzy that followed Nirvana’s debut in the ‘90s as record companies swept in and signed any band remotely associated with the Seattle grunge sound. And then they dropped pretty much all of them – sometimes within weeks of signing -- often cutting off their touring budgets right in the middle of tours and stranding them on the road – because of their failure to generate Nirvana-level revenues. The movie is about what happened to all those bands and where they are now.
For any new readers: My new novel, Tania the Revolutionary, is available on Amazon for Kindle and paperback or Barnes & Noble for eBook.