Shortly before the recent publication of my latest memoir, I received an interesting email – a series of probing questions really – from a friend. These questions prompted me to dig deep to find some answers.
During the five years of writing, you questioned when to end the book... when the crisis is "over"? At the vaccination release? And here we are - just entering Round 2 of who knows what fresh hell awaits and the book is ready to be released. A key point is the crisis ISN'T over. It seems like it will never be over. So what do we do with that? Is your book a caution? A reminder of how bad it was so we maybe don't repeat the same mistakes? A warning that we can't just check out because we are weary of crises? The timing of the release of PB right after Trump 2.0 begins seems like something to take note of - a significant coincidence? Perfect timing? And to hopefully achieve what?
Needless to say, this friend has become a bit of a muse – a muse I have learned not to ignore. So how do I answer that stream of questions?
First, I write to understand, clarify, remember, create. I write because it calms my soul, allows my brain to stop and sleep. I am not a writer who writes to convince anyone of anything or even to entertain. I do not think of “audience” when I write. And I certainly don’t think I’ll ever clear a cent of profit from my writing. So why publish at all?
I have been journaling off and on for over fifty years. In 2002 I began writing what became my first book, published in 2008 and re-released in 2018. Why did I seek that first publication? Because The Thirty-Ninth Victim gave voice to a silenced past. Without publication, without voice, I believed – and still believe – I would have remained an incomplete woman.
Three memoirs and three novels later, I have written and published Pandemic Baby: Letters to My Grandson Before He Could Read. What began as a coping tool of journals and letters during a dreadful pandemic gave voice to my political and social beliefs in a more direct manner than anything I had written prior. A clarifying of my beliefs. To publish was to give voice to those beliefs. And though I am no one famous or important – a retired ESL teacher, a cyclist, reader, gardener, wife, mother (always), and a new grandma – my beliefs matter. Just as yours do.
So I published. I published on Amazon. I’d prefer my books be in every independent bookstore and library across this country. But I am an elderly white woman of average talent, with a limited writers’ network and minimal means. I have published with three small presses that all went out of business. No major agent or publisher has expressed interest in my work. Publishing on Amazon allows me to hold that work in book format and share my voice with a small audience of devoted readers. For this I am grateful.
Why now? Why publish a story about the tragedies of Trump’s first term just after he’s been re-elected to a second? Pandemic Baby was never intended as a cautionary tale; I wasn’t trying to convince anyone how to vote in the 2024 election. It is, however, an accurate description of the period from early 2020 when COVID hit the Seattle area to summer 2022 when my grandson could finally be vaccinated. The book opens with an overview of the Trump years prior to his birth in June 2020. It was a time unlike any other in the history of our democracy. I wanted to document the world as I saw it, the world into which he was born.
But Jack was only one of over three million babies born in the United States during the first year of the pandemic. The story I wrote goes beyond him and me. It is a story for all the pandemic babies, their parents and grandparents. It is a book I published to give voice to a unique yet universal story. The publication just after the Trump re-election was a coincidence, and yet if it serves as a reminder of what we have been through and what we need to prepare ourselves to endure once again, the timing may indeed be perfect. I hope you will read it and let me know what you think.
