Karen Halvorsen Schreck | My Mother, My Self—How Her Story Shaped My Novel Broken Ground...
January 8, 2016
And How My Story Extended Hers
Lately, I’ve been having some challenging conversations with a friend concerning
the ongoing inspiration I find in what my parents told me (many years ago now) about
their own lives—particularly their lives before my existence. “You have your own
experiences, your own perspective, not to mention your own vivid imagination,” my
friend says. “Why do you feel the need to carry the burden of your parents’ stories?
Are you setting aside your own material, better, more immediate material, trying to
keep them alive?”
Her questions have left me shaken. They’ve made me reflect again on that frequent
question: where do your ideas come from as a writer? And, yes, for me, some of those
ideas have been influenced by the stories my parents told me, and the stories my
parents didn’t tell me—the ones I only learned after my mother’s passing (she died
when I was fourteen years old, and was a notably reserved woman before that time).
The ones I only learned from others who knew her, in so many ways, better than I
ever got the chance.
My dad, the verbose one in our little family of three, was a fabulous storyteller
—a performer, actually. Our after dinner-ritual consisted of me asking him for a
story from his childhood or from his time as a soldier in WWII, and him exuberantly
complying. And all the while, my mother would typically be found at the kitchen
sink, washing up the dishes.
My mother was dying of cancer when she told me that she had been married once
before she married my father, to her childhood sweetheart who died in WWII. She told
me to keep that information to myself. My father knew it, but it troubled him. She
didn’t tell me anything else. Years later, her sister and her cousins shared
photographs and details. They were the ones who told me about her terrible
depression after her young husband’s death. They told me that one day she pulled
herself up and got herself out of Oklahoma—the first woman in the family to travel
across the country (to California) in order to pursue her college education. It
always seemed to me a mythical journey. Given her nature and the era and the kind of
family in which she was raised, I imagine the effort she expended was Herculean.
This aspect of her life became the thing I held on to (hold on to), when I
missed her and needed inspiration upon encountering my own specific challenges.
The thing I tell myself, the thing I want to tell my friend is this: the stories
my parents told me are not etched in stone, fixed and unchanging. The stories my
parents told me evolve as I evolve, and, when I choose to draw upon them as a
writer, they become most malleable, influenced by the present and my wonderings
about the future. In the case of my forthcoming novel, BROKEN GROUND (S&S/Howard
Books, 5/16), my mother’s loss and her journey west took on a whole other dimension
when I began doing research on the Dustbowl Refugees of the 1930s. I learned
something I never knew: during the 1930s, a large number of people of Mexican
heritage, many of whom were citizens of the United States, were deported without due
process to provide jobs for “real Americans.” Some say the number of these
deportations was as high as one to two million. Families were separated. Homes and
businesses lost. Without any real warning, people, some of who spoke only English,
were carted off in trains and buses and driven south of the border.
This information collided with my mother’s story and made another story
altogether. Why? Well, I wanted to understand more about this event. I wanted to
know why I KNEW NOTHING ABOUT IT. Also, and with more to-the-bone immediacy, there’s
the fact of my own children. My husband and I adopted our two kids from Guatemala. I
am a different person because of this fact. Certain assumptions aren’t there any
more. I care differently about what and whose stories are told, and what and whose
stories aren’t told, and how they’re interpreted and dismissed.
So there was my mother first, and now there are my children. And then there’s me,
and the wonderings and imaginings that take over when the fictional process grabs
hold. It’s a complex thing—where inspiration comes from, and there can be a real
danger in dissecting and analyzing it, or any aspect of creativity, perhaps. Maybe
it’s simply best to be open and grateful, and let that little flicker of new life
shine. Come to think, maybe that will be my New Year’s resolution.
Emily Dickinson says it better than I ever could:
SPLIT the lark and you’ll find the music,
Bulb after bulb, in silver rolled,
Scantily dealt to the summer morning,
Saved for your ear when lutes be old.
Loose the flood, you shall find it patent,
Gush after gush, reserved for you;
Scarlet experiment! sceptic Thomas,
Now, do you doubt that your bird was true?
Giveaway
What are some of the memories you want to pass to your children or to understand?
One commenter will win a copy of SING FOR ME
Karen Halvorsen Schreck’s latest novel, BROKEN GROUND, will be published
by Simon & Schuster’s Howard books in May 2016. Her most recent novel, SING FOR ME
(Spring, 2014) was called “Impressive . . . a well-wrought
and edifying page-turner” by Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review). Her other novels
include While He Was Away, a Finalist for the 2012 Oklahoma Young Adult Book Award,
and Dream Journal, a 2006 Young Adult BookSense Pick. Her published short stories
and articles have received various awards, including a Pushcart Prize and an
Illinois State Arts Council Grant.
Karen received her doctorate in English and Creative from the University of Illinois
at Chicago. She works as a freelance writer and editor, teaches writing and
literature, and lives with her husband, the photographer Greg Halvorsen Schreck, and
their two children in Wheaton, Illinois.
When a young oil rig widow escapes her grief and the Texas Dust Bowl, she
discovers a surprising future—and new passion—
awaiting her in California in this lyrically written romance by the author of SING
FOR ME.
Newly married to her childhood sweetheart, twenty-one-year-old
Ruth Warren is settling into life in a Depression-era, East
Texas oil town. She’s making a home when she learns that her young husband, Charlie,
has been killed in an oil rig accident.
Ruth is devastated, but then gets a chance for a fresh start: a scholarship from a
college in Pasadena, CA. Ruth decides to
take a risk and travel west, to pursue her one remaining dream to become a teacher.
At college Ruth tries to fit into campus life, but her grief holds her back. When
she spends Christmas with some old family
friends, she meets the striking and compelling Thomas Everly, whose own losses and
struggles have instilled in him a
commitment to social justice, and led him to work with Mexican migrant farmworkers
in a camp just east of Los Angeles. With
Thomas, Ruth sees another side of town, and another side of current events: the
forced deportation of Mexican migrant workers
due to the Repatriation Act put into place during President Herbert Hoover’s
administration.
After Ruth is forced to leave school, she goes to visit Thomas and sees that he has
cobbled together a night school for the
farmworkers’ children. Ruth begins to work with the children, and establishes deep
friendships with people in the camp. When
the camp is raided and the workers and their families are rounded up and shipped
back to Mexico, Ruth and Thomas decide to
take a stand for the workers’ rights—all while promising to love and cherish one
another.
Both of your books, Broken Ground and Sing For Me sound so good. I have seen Sing For Me, but didn't realize there were faith undertones. That makes me want to read it even more. (Terrill Rosado 4:11am January 8, 2016)
I forgot to answer the question. :) I definitely want to pass my Christian faith down to my children. I would like to see many of the "Sins of the father" broken and stalled. (Terrill Rosado 4:13am January 8, 2016)
The history of their grandparents. (Marissa Yip-Young 6:26am January 8, 2016)
The family history my research in genealogy. (Leona Olson 9:28am January 8, 2016)
What a captivating and inspiring post. I would want my children to learn all about their background, ancestors and history. (Sharon Berger 12:17pm January 8, 2016)
Terrill Rosado, it makes me so happy you have Sing For Me! I would love to hear thoughts on it if you find the time to dig in! (Karen H. Schreck 4:26pm January 8, 2016)
Leona Olson and Sharon Berger, it is so wonderful you want to share your family history with the next generation. I've been considering joining ancestory.com. Do you use it as a resource? (Karen H. Schreck 4:29pm January 8, 2016)
I don't have any children, but I would like to share my memories of my grandparents and my parents with my niece and nephew. They see very little of my parents and never knew my grandparents. Every year as I was growing up, family members came from far and wide to celebrate on several occasions each year on my father's farm. There are too many memories to mention here, but I will always remember picking strawberries, making apple cider and the fishing trips. (Amy Kincade 12:09pm January 9, 2016)
Family, traditions and love (Donna Antonio 11:39am January 9, 2016)
To love your family , spoil your children a little , it want hurt them , give them lots of love and care . Teach them the value of everything and to appreciate what they have and love and give thanks to God always . I'd love to read your book . Thanks for this chance to win . (Joan Thrasher 12:23pm January 9, 2016)
Joan, Donna, L Lam, and Amy: thank you for your wonderful comments! I wish each every one of you could receive a copy of SING FOR ME! There will be more giveaways, I'm sure, and still more to come of BROKEN GROUND, due out in May. You're the best! (Karen H. Schreck 5:37pm January 9, 2016)
Due to health issues, the Doctor didn't want me to have children, which broke my heart. You were fortunate that you were able to learn stories about your Parents' childhood, even though your Mother passed away when you were so young!! I lost my Mother in middle age, and even though she had Alzheimer's, before she came down with it, I really didn't know much about her childhood. Because I was a child of Depression-era Parents, I did have quite an interesting childhood, however, and it would make for quite the memoir. If I had a little more spare time, I think I would sit down and actually write it. I'm looking forward to reading your latest book, as well as your prior book. They both sound like something that I would enjoy reading, and now that we keep getting mini blizzards up here, it's the perfect weather to curl up with my books!! Congratulations on your latest book!! Have a wonderful 2016!! (Peggy Roberson 8:01pm January 9, 2016)
My parents have survived WWII during the Japanese occupancy of their homes. My father would like to forget and my mother wanted this generation to know how fortunate we are not to go through terror, hunger, and losing everything. This is something that none of my siblings and I would understand until we walk in their shoes. (Kai Wong 12:48pm January 10, 2016)
It's interesting how you can take information your parents told you and weave it into a wonderful story for us to enjoy. (Laurie Bergh 1:44pm January 11, 2016)
love family, spoil children some, and love them unconditionally, because we all need a safe place to fall!! I hope to win, this contest sounds awesome. Thank you all. Cindy (Cindy Davenport 5:06pm January 11, 2016)
Blessings in this new year on your reading, your sharing of stories, and your lives, dear friends! (Karen H. Schreck 6:21pm January 11, 2016)
As much as we love and have become dependent upon technology, I can't help but think it has significantly altered a great deal about our values and attitudes. In so many ways our lives are easier than ever before, and yet we are also busier and more stressed than ever before.
I want my children to know how people lived in the past - what were the struggles previous generations have faced? How has history shaped our lives today and the people we have become. I know it always puts my own problems in perspective and constantly forces me to evaluate what is really important. But I am the last generation that remembers what it was like before the Internet and constant connectivity.
I want my children to appreciate how things were before this so they can make informed decisions about when to use technology and when to put it away from them and enjoy the natural world and the rewards of honest work. (Katie Donovan 8:10pm January 11, 2016)
To Karen- I do use ancestry (I go to my library) and also have found distance relatives in the states and Italy by using Facebook. (Leona Olson 8:16am January 12, 2016)
I find stories about my grandparents and great-grandparents fascinating and want to share what I know with my children and grandchildren. (Anna Speed 9:38pm January 12, 2016)
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