Trisha Sugarek | Wild Violets

It was only while I was researching for my novel, Wild Violets that I learned that my mother "farmed out" my sister and brother to strangers. The term usually referred to children who were sent to a relative back in the day. In my siblings' case it was a true indenture. My brother and sister had to work for their keep, ages six and 11. I never knew this because I was the baby in the family, born 11 and 8 years, respectively, after my siblings.

They told me these stories as I plumbed their pasts before I was born, when they lived with our mother over the bar that she owned. "Wild Violets" began as a romanticized version of my Mother as a flapper and entrepreneur in the 1920's in San Francisco. As I was writing and the family secrets unfolded, the romanticism flew right out the window. And that's okay; remember what I've said before about your story taking hold and telling itself?

But the enormity of my mother's actions still didn't really sink in....grab my heart. 'It happened so long ago, it happened in a different time, it didn't happen to me', I told myself.

Until....I began to actually write that part of the story. Here were these two little kids dumped at the front door of a farm house by their mother and her current boyfriend. The kids had no warning, no time frame, didn't even know if they would ever see their mother again. And for no good reason. The family wasn't destitute....she owned a bar and grill in San Francisco. There were no addiction problems unless you counted our mother's addition to men.

As I wrote those pages, I finally became invested in what had happened to my brother and sister over seventy years ago. And my heart broke. To finally see why, in part, they became the people they are today. Why, at times, my sister bitterly resented me. Why my brother was an overachiever and obsessed with family.

In my own way, I too was abandoned by our mother. No, she never farmed me out. Nothing so overt as that. But she chose her men over me, time and time again. Her desires always trumped my childhood needs.

I was a left-over. A possession that she could put down or pick up again on a whim. Show off to her current beau or friends and then set in a corner, like an old broom.

And if you, my readers, hear bitterness leaking through my words....it's not for me and how I was raised. Because I have overcome my past and empowered myself to be the fierce, tough and resilient woman that I am today. Seeking and honing my talent and achieving my goals.

The bitterness and heartache you hear, in my voice, are for those two little kids dumped at a stranger's door!

The result is a rich, human, family story of a different time.

Wild Violets

It’s the roaring twenties in San Francisco, a decade famous for hot jazz and bath tub gin.

Violet (The Guyer Girls) has grown into a beautiful woman with children of her own. She has left her small home town in the Pacific Northwest to pursue a successful basketball career and with her earnings, she bought a bar and grill. She is a ‘flapper’ in every sense of the word; working all day and playing all night. While her teenage daughter raises her seven year old son, Violet is out on the town with her latest man de’jour. Dressed in her signature red dress, she is the toast of the town and owner of a speakeasy where she hosts the cream of San Francisco’s society, city politicians, bishops, and Hollywood celebrities.

But there is an underbelly of corruption, grifters, the mob, excess, and neglect in Violet’s life. Her two children are an afterthought and she chooses her men over their well being time and time again. Their childhood needs are always trumped by her self-indulgent desires. The two children are possessions that she can put down or pick up again on a whim, showing them off to her current beau or friends and then forgotten. And when they get in her way, she gets rid of them.

Also available in audiobook