My novel Mother Mother launched a year ago this month. The characters and scenes began to obsess me almost as soon as my memoir Mamalita was published. In my dreams and awake I heard Rosalba and Juan, Julie and Mark. I saw Rosalba’s village in San Rolando and Julie’s art museum in San Francisco. The only way to break free from their insistent voices was to tell their story.
I now wonder why it took me seven years to write the thing because I knew the characters, knew the narrative arc, knew the ending from the beginning. I should have sat down and knocked it out in six months. But as my husband kept reminding me, “It takes as long as it takes.” I console myself by remembering that I continued to learn during those seven years, continued to research Guatemalan history, to deepen my understanding of the complexity of family and adoption, identity and belonging.
I said everything I needed to say in this book. I put everything on the page. I’m grateful to everyone who read it, who wrote or chatted with me about their reaction, posted a review, recommended to a friend or discussed in their book group. Thank you, too, to my helpful and skilled teachers, beta readers and editors and to Loyola University’s Apprentice House Press.
I’m proud of the awards Mother Mother has received and hope you don’t mind if I list them: Winner 2021 San Diego Book Awards for general fiction, Finalist in the 2021 National Indie Excellence Award for general fiction, Distinguished Favorite in the 2021 Independent Book Awards, Third place Feathered Quill Book Awards in literary fiction.
Thank you for sharing this journey with me.
PS: Mother Mother: Check it out! It’s a great read! Xoxox
