ANTHEM is coming, chapter 45

[NOTE: the last post at Blogger will be on Oct. 1 (next Tuesday). To stay connected with Field Notes, you can sub here, or we may have a Feedburner work-around coming by Tues... I am a novelist, not a techie, can you tell? In any case, stay tuned. xo Debbie]

ANTHEM, Book 3 of the Sixties Trilogy, publishes on October 1. Each of the book's 47 chapters begins with a song from the Sixties to set the tone, mood, and scene. Every day between now and October 1, come have a listen and read a snippet from each chapter. On October 1, these posts will be archived with a link at ANTHEM's webpage for #teachingAnthem1969
 
This is Chapter 45 (day 3):

PIECE OF MY HEART
Written by Jerry Ragovoy and Bert Berns
Performed by Janis Joplin/Big Brother and the Holding Company
Recorded at Columbia Studios, Los Angeles, CA and NY, NY 1968 
Drummer: Dave Getz

Molly glanced at Norman. "Where are we going?"
"Fillmore West," Norman told the driver. "Corner of Market and South Van Ness."
"What's happening?" Molly asked. 
Norman rummaged in his pocket. "I bought these today," he said, "at a pawn shop. The poster was in the window."
Molly snatched the tickets from his hand. "Iron Butterfly! You love them!"
Norman almost laughed. Someone excited for him. It was a good feeling.
"Barry would love this," said Molly. "Turn around!" she told the driver impulsively. "Norman you should take Barry!"
"Never mind," Norman told the driver. "To the Fillmore, please."...
"Norman, really..." said Molly....
"No." Norman gritted his teeth. "I don't want to do anything with Barry right now. Maybe never.... I want to take you... We'll have this to talk about for years and years..."
"We've already got a lot to talk about. A lot. For years and years."
"I want this, too. One day I might have to go to war. If I'm drafted, I'll go. And I don't want to sit over there thinking about how I could have taken you to see Iron Butterfly in San Francisco but instead I took Barry, who didn't care two hoots about me...." He's selfish. I appreciate you, Molly. Come to the concert with me." 



Hearts are breaking everywhere in Chapters 44 through 46. When I was trying to write LOVE, RUBY LAVENDER, my first novel, my editor, Liz Van Doren, at Harcourt Books, kept saying, "Let her heart break."

It took me several drafts to take her advice to heart (ha) and do that. It opened up the story. We hate to break our beloveds' hearts, and yet that's what fiction is about, isn't it? Let's see characters in impossible situations, physical and/or emotional, and let's see what they do, how they fall apart and put themselves back together, and thereby create a roadmap for us to do the same thing in our own lives, with our own heartbreaks.

In A LONG LINE OF CAKES, the fourth Aurora County book, which was published last year, I did such a good job of letting Emma's heart break that my editor (David Levithan at Scholastic) asked me if I wasn't going to put that thing back together that Emma tore up, so readers could see it at the end?

Well... no. Because Emma could put her heart back together emotionally by that point, and the physical didn't matter as much. And that's what's happening here, with Norman, as he begins to determine he's not going to spend any more emotional energy on Barry.

Norman is waking up to what's right in front of him, the cousin who traveled across the country with him, who navigated them to San Francisco, who is a royal pain in the neck as well as -- who knew? -- suddenly, a loyal and faithful friend. Let the record show that Norman's heart breaks, and he lets it. And he makes the decision to move forward.

"Piece of my Heart" and Janis were important to include in San Francisco chapters of ANTHEM, as Big Brother et al were a San Francisco band and I wanted you to hear that San Francisco sound, along with "Evil Ways" and Santana (Chapter 43), and, early-on in ANTHEM, CCR and "Bad Moon Rising" (Chapter 4).

You'll also find, as we hurtle to the end, a repeat of Chapter 2's Iron Butterfly and "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida" in Chapter 45, which serves as Norman's theme song in ANTHEM. Norman finally gets to hear the Butterfly live -- remember the drum solo? Watch what happens. I'm bringing it around full circle for Norman.

Iron Butterfly did play at Fillmore West in late June 1969, on the very date I have Molly and Norman there. It's details like this that delight a researcher when she's trying to make a story come together and be true to events. Far out. Or, as Norman would put it, "Groovy!"

Fillmore West 1970 — the research on Bill Graham and the bands who played the Fillmore — and its locations — was its own amazing rabbit hole…

Chapter 45

ANTHEM is coming, chapter 44

[NOTE: the last post at Blogger will be on Oct. 1 (next Tuesday). To stay connected with Field Notes, sub here, where you'll see the sub box on the right sidebar. My webmistress tells me that mailchimp's rules state that I can't sub you (as I thought I could), that you must do it yourself, hence the link I'll put here all this week, so you can be sure to hop over to WordPress with us. Everything you're seeing here is duplicated at WP. xoxoxo Debbie]

ANTHEM, Book 3 of the Sixties Trilogy, publishes on October 1. Each of the book's 47 chapters begins with a song from the Sixties to set the tone, mood, and scene. Every day between now and October 1, come have a listen and read a snippet from each chapter. On October 1, these posts will be archived with a link at ANTHEM's webpage for #teachingAnthem1969
 
This is Chapter 44 (day 4):

DAZED AND CONFUSED
Written by Jake Holmes
Performed by Led Zeppelin
Recorded at Olympic Studio, London, England 1968
Drummer: John Bonham

NORMAN:

"I've lived without family for over a year," says Barry. He stabs a noodle roll. "It's not so bad."
Molly looks stricken. "You don't mean it."
"It was pretty bad for us," I say.
"I don't care if I never go back home," says Barry. I can feel Molly steel herself across the table.
After a leaden pause, Jo Ellen asks Barry, "Did your attorney tell you about your draft notice?"
"Who's being drafted?" asks Colonel Chapman.
"I am, evidently," says Barry. "Yeah, she told me."
"Your physical date is July second," I say.
"I don't plan to report," says Barry.
Molly has taken a sip of her soup. She chokes on it.
"It was Mom's idea to bring you home," she says, coughing. "She said we would figure out what to do as a family."
"No way am I going home to let Dad scream at me again!"
Colonel Chapman leans his elbows on the table. "I personally know young men -- or knew them -- who would be happy to have their parents scream at them again, if they could be here, on this planet, alive."




This scene goes on for another two pages. It was a pleasure to write. Dinner-table scenes are full of possibilities. Get everyone around a table, talking and eating, airing their grievances, pressing their points, and move the story forward.

I learned to do this with EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS. I had an ensemble cast for that book, the largest I'd ever created at that point, and I needed a way for them all to be heard in conversation. A dinner table -- or, in the case of THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS, a ball field; or in the case of A LONG LINE OF CAKES, a gathering at an old man's house and an impromptu picnic -- accomplish so many storytelling tasks.

The dinner table scene in COUNTDOWN, where Uncle Otts waves Life Magazine and says, "We won't have another Thanksgiving if we are all blown up!" or the dinner scene in REVOLUTION where the reader understands Memaw's character and Uncle Vivian's politics, and suddenly the relationships between all the characters and Sunny, our hero, comes into view.

These scenes contain a ton of dialogue, and dialogue accomplishes three major tasks in a story: 1. It provides information. 2. It characterizes. 3. It moves the story forward.

Even a small scene, like the one between Sunny and Laura Mae, the hired help, gives us so much information, and provides all kinds of emotional resonance, whether they are at the kitchen table alone or sitting in the back of the car and Laura Mae reminisces about Emmett Till. Dialogue is rich territory.

So in Chapter 44, sitting at the big round table at Sam Wo's in Chinatown, it all comes together. They process what happened earlier in the chapter, secrets are revealed, personalities are confirmed, backstory is given, exposition is laced in, and resolutions are begun for characters who are about to exit the stage.

There is so much confusion, and Molly is certainly dazed by now, but at the same time, this confusion is making a path for clarity... that's how it works. Dinner-time (or gathering) scenes are big payoffs for the reader. Nothing is so rewarding to write in a novel as dialogue.

As for Led Zeppelin and "Dazed and Confused," the song title was perfect for what I wanted to accomplish in this chapter. Led and I (hahaha) were never close, but I knew the song, and knew how crazily-right it sounded for Molly with its psychedelic-rock overtones that mimic the Hendrix that Barry so loved. Molly is at a crossroads, just as the country was, in 1969. So much was being born:

While so many were also dying:

Dazed and confused. Yes. We were.

Chapter 44.

ANTHEM is coming, chapter 43

[NOTE: the last post at Blogger will be on Oct. 1 (next Tuesday). To stay connected with Field Notes, sub here, where you'll see the sub box on the right sidebar. My webmistress tells me that mailchimp's rules state that I can't sub you (as I thought I could), that you must do it yourself, hence the link I'll put here all this week, so you can be sure to hop over to WordPress with us. Everything you're seeing here is duplicated at WP. xoxoxo Debbie]

ANTHEM, Book 3 of the Sixties Trilogy, publishes on October 1. Each of the book's 47 chapters begins with a song from the Sixties to set the tone, mood, and scene. Every day between now and October 1, come have a listen and read a snippet from each chapter. On October 1, these posts will be archived with a link at ANTHEM's webpage for #teachingAnthem1969
 
This is Chapter 43 (day 5):

EVIL WAYS
Written by Clarence "Sonny" Henry
Performed by Santana
Recorded at Pacific Recording Studios, San Mateo, California 1969
Drummer: Mike Shrieve 

NORMAN:

Barry's letter sticks in my craw like a swallowed chicken bone I can't dislodge. I might choke on it. His tone is so cavalier, just like he always is. He expects me to say How high? Every time he says Jump. All my life, I looked up to Barry. I wanted to be like him. I would do -- and did -- anything for him.
 But when I wanted him to help me recruit members for my band, he was too busy. When I wanted him to put together a band and put me in it, he forgot about his promise and said he wasn't interested in a band. When he wanted me to keep quiet about his whereabouts, or even the fact that he was alive, I did it. Molly is right; I should have told her. I helped break her heart by not telling her he was safe. Barry left her without a good-bye. Because that's what Barry does. He does as he pleases. Has, all his life. Why do we let him get away with that?




Things are coming to a head in San Francisco, and it's a toss-up as to which way they will go. "Evil Ways" highlights Norman's dawning awareness of who his cousin is, and why his family has treated him as the golden child for so long.

And, in this chapter, Norman is a stand-in for the American people who were increasingly coming awake to what they saw as the evils of the war in Vietnam, and to those who wanted to right wrongs in other ways as they worked for equality and justice in America, as Jo Ellen does. (She has come a long -- and unsurprising -- way from her college days in COUNTDOWN, yes?)

No spoilers here, but a couple more stills from ANTHEM scrapbooks as we hurtle to not only the end of the story, but the end of our #47chapters47songs. (We cut the first photo, but I love it so much, I want to include it here.)

and

Chapter 43.