The Heroine in Ireland: The Girl from Ballymor

There are many good books but only occasional great ones, and The Girl from Ballymor definitely is one of the great ones. It has reminded me many times over how it was books like this one that caused me to fall in love with reading, which later led to a lifelong love of writing as well. Because of that, I have decided to create a new playlist on YouTube containing book reviews as well as post reviews on my blogs. I am a notoriously slow reader; I prefer to read a scene and allow it to marinate, rolling it around in my mind until I can truly feel like I am there as one of the characters, allowing their circumstances to settle into my consciousness. For that reason, I will not be publishing many reviews each year, but those I do are definitely ones I recommend.

The Girl from Ballymor is told in two time periods as our contemporary Maria travels to Ireland to research her family history and specifically Kitty McCarthy, a grandmother several generations back. The plot grabbed my attention from the start because those that follow my blogs and writing know that I began a quest many years ago to find my ancestors in Ireland. Though my father and grandfather had amassed quite a bit of information, it was concentrated on ancestors in America and I wanted to go further back, partly to find out why I was so drawn to the Emerald Isle.

We discover Maria’s ancestor Kitty after she married and had six children, though her earlier years are told in vivid flashbacks. To say she did not have an easy life is a vast understatement. Her husband Patrick has died in a copper mine accident and several of her children have perished during the potato famine of the 1840s, which drastically reduced the population from eight million to lower than three million, between starvation-related deaths and survivors fleeing the island. The three survivors—Kitty, her eldest son Michael and her daughter Gracie—are slowly starving.

Maria is there to discover what happened because Michael survived, immigrating first to America and then returning on his own quest to find his mother. He had become a famous artist, and many of his portraits featured the same young woman, his mother, often wearing a Celtic brooch; yet there are no records of her death.

This is a book with so many layers that it's worth reading again and again, a classic for the ages. There's the realization that both then and now, a person’s existence is often determined by where they live, the social class they were born into, and how they handle problems and challenges, some of which are life threatening, that ultimately will decide their fate. In a time that has become increasingly more complex, the reader steps into a completely different world as we travel back to the 1840’s when the only goal was to find work to survive just one more day, even if that work is breaking rocks by hand in the Irish rain, hour after hour, for a cup of warm broth or a bite of cheese or bread.

Kathleen McGurl is a fabulous writer, her style reminiscent of authors I fell in love with so many decades ago, authors that expanded my horizons, broadened my understanding of the world, and have always caused me to want to be a better person. McGurl deserves to be listed among the greatest of them, her words carrying weight, the characters alive in my soul, long after reading that last page.

Watch my video review of The Girl from Ballymor here, or on YouTube at https://youtu.be/KUGCxgE_xIM

The Hero's Trauma and Life-Transforming Journey

We’re continuing with the hero’s journey, and today I want to tell you about the trauma that awakens the hero and catapults him or her along their journey. The trauma can be a death (especially one that is unexpected or sudden), a divorce or split, job loss, illness or a move—especially one that is necessitated by financial burdens. These traumas comprise the most stressful events an individual can experience in their lifetime.

In The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King, Andy Defresne’ journey begins when his wife is murdered and he is tried, convicted and sent to prison though he is an innocent man. It is one of any man’s worst nightmares, because all he has known is gone and he is left powerless, often victimized in a tough prison where there is no escape—or so we think. Andy embarks on the reluctant hero’s journey because it is not one of his making, but as we turn the pages we discover that Andy finds traits within himself that will not only keep him alive but eventually turn the tables on the corrupt prison management.

All great books show us characters that are transformed by their journeys, whether it is Andy Defresne, Scarlett O’Hara or Oliver Twist.

I try to remember the life-altering traumas when I write my own books. In Vicki’s Key, for example, the book begins with a recurring nightmare, a memory buried in Vicki’s consciousness when a CIA mission failed, resulting in innocent children’s deaths. It is that mission that so traumatizes her that she leaves the CIA and embarks on a new life—only to have the CIA catch up with her. She is transformed through the series as she gains strength and ultimately faces her demons.

The Tempest Murders begins with a different type of trauma when Constable Rian Kelly’s lover dies at the hands of a killer during one of the worst storms in Ireland’s history. We then switch to the present day to find Kelly’s great-great-nephew, Detective Ryan O’Clery, investigating a string of murders identical to those Kelly had been investigating—and Ryan discovers his nightmares are actually the memories of his ancestor. He, too, is transformed as he must face inner demons that have haunted him since childhood.

In A Thin Slice of Heaven, we encounter another type of trauma that leads our hero on her journey. Charleigh arrives at a remote castle in Northern Ireland anticipating a romantic anniversary celebration when she receives a text from her husband telling her he is leaving her for another woman. Stranded at the castle, she first wallows in her grief before pulling herself together and moving on—and in the process, discovering things about herself.

Great books thrive on conflict: they move the plot forward, they keep readers guessing at the outcome, and they ultimately change the main characters forever. A great book leaves you feeling like you know the main character as if he or she were a close friend; long after you’ve closed that last page, you find yourself thinking of them. 

It was like that for me as I read The Girl from Ballymor by Kathleen McGurl, the haunting story of a young woman experiencing the Irish Potato Famine in the late 1840’s. Kitty McCarthy had six children by the age of 30 and within a three-year span had lost her husband to a copper mine accident and five children to famine and disease. I found myself awakening during the night thinking of her life and how similar it must have been to thousands of Irish.

A life-transforming journey not only changes the main character but also has the ability to change the reader, our views of history and our world, and of mankind—where we came from and where we are heading.

Join the discussion on my Facebook page. Let me know which books and characters that have remained with you over the years, and their life-transforming journeys.

Pictures of staged crime scene and Ireland courtesy of FreeImages.com. 

The Antidote to Suicide

I know why a person commits suicide. Regardless of their situation or their circumstances, there is a single thread that runs through them all.

The Centers for Disease Control released a study that concluded suicide rates have risen nearly 30% in the United States since 1999. Twenty-five states experienced increases of over 30%, and in all states except Nevada, suicide had increased in every age group. White middle-aged women had an increase of 80%.

Though the study mentions factors such as relationship problems or loss, life stressors such as work or school, and recent or impending crises, the one thread that exists across all spectrums is the loss of hope as a collective depression has settled in. As long as there is hope that the situation will pass, the pain will lessen. If there is a belief that at some point in the future there will dawn a brighter day, there exists a lifeline that helps individuals place one foot in front of the other. But when all hope is lost and they cannot see their situation improving, there can exist a feeling that there is no sense in carrying on.

With the stock market crash of 1929 came headlines that “you had to stand in line to get a window to jump out of” and lower Broadway was clogged with corpses. (The Washington Post, Bennett Lowenthal, October 25, 1987) But that actually was not the case, as the referenced article points out. From Black Thursday through the end of 1929, the New York Times reported 100 suicides and attempted suicides. It would take until 1932 for the suicide rate to peak with 17.4 out of every 100,000 Americans. On July 8, 1932, the Dow Jones Industrial Average bottomed out at 41.22, the lowest since the Great Depression began. The unemployment rate was 23.6%. The Dust Bowl had been going on since 1930 and would continue for four more years. It was against this backdrop that The Grapes of Wrath took place, as John Steinbeck tells of the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s, a family evicted from their home and their struggles to survive.

Those that did commit suicide when they first learned that their money was gone might have thought they could not recover from the financial loss. Perhaps when they looked ahead, they saw in their mind’s eye only food lines, unemployment and a persistent want. By 1932, more people were beginning to see only a bleak future ahead as the Great Depression wore on. By that time, up to two million Americans were homeless, many evicted from their homes and others surviving in shantytowns called Hoovervilles, vividly portrayed in The Grapes of Wrath, and described by Steinbeck as “...in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

But if the Dust Bowl continued for four more years and the Great Depression did not subside until 1939, why did the suicide rate go down after 1932? Perhaps one argument could be made for the change in government; Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected by a landslide (472 electoral votes to Hoover’s 59), largely because of his plans to pull the country out of the Depression, partly with his New Deal. His plan, considered radical at the time, gave hope to millions. FDR spoke to the hearts of millions when he said, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

On January 20, 1989, George H. W. Bush said this during his inaugural address:

“I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good. We will work hand in hand, encouraging, sometimes leading, sometimes being led, rewarding. We will work on this in the White House, in the Cabinet agencies. I will go to the people and the programs that are the brighter points of light, and I will ask every member of my government to become involved. The old ideas are new again because they are not old, they are timeless: duty, sacrifice, commitment, and a patriotism that finds its expression in taking part and pitching in.” (Bartleby)

When you consider each one of us as a point of light, contributing to the collective good for all mankind and our planet, you begin to understand exactly what Bush was referring to. No one person has all the knowledge of the Universe, but collectively each of us can lend our knowledge, our time, our commitment to the causes we are most passionate about, leading to the best version of Utopia we human beings can attain. Just like a single grain of sand cannot create a beach but billions of them can, each of us can contribute what we are capable of for the collective good.

It is time for every American to decide what they want for the future; not only their personal future but that of their children, their grandchildren, the country and the world. On one hand, we are faced with people who advocate hatred, bigotry and disregard for human life—disregard for any of God’s creatures that do not look like them, sound like them, vote like them, pray like them or act like them. If we were to continue on this path, the United States of America would be turning away from the dreams and plans of the Founding Fathers. Once we start down that road and we move beyond a certain point, we shape our country into one filled with hatred, distrust of neighbors, suspicion, intolerance and disregard for basic human rights. One man or one group will not be able to harness that monster but it will grow larger and uglier with successive generations.

But today we have the ability to turn this around and project the hope that a thousand points of light can bring. While one person cannot do it all, one person can contribute what they can to promote tolerance, inclusiveness, love and respect for those within their sphere. If we lift up those we can, it creates a ripple effect of greater and greater circles until the country once again symbolizes the hope for all mankind. I do not recall who said it first: that the only thing we must remain intolerant of is intolerance.

We can look to our own personal values, however deep we must dive, to show the better side of being a human being and not its worst. And in focusing on becoming one point of light, we can make things better for those we come in contact with. We can give hope back to the masses. And once we restore hope, I’d wager that suicide rates will go down.

Be the light for someone else.

All images courtesy of FreeImages.com. Join the discussion about this post and others on my Facebook page.

When Reality Isn't

Watch the video at the bottom of this blog or visit https://youtu.be/Csrn0wd5Ky8.

We often consider memories to be solid facts; framed within a moment of time, we remember actions and people as if we are watching a movie in which the scene has been filmed and canned and is now frozen forever like Rhett Butler in the doorway telling Scarlett he doesn’t give a damn. But what if our memories are not accurate representations but they are merely our perception of what occurred, and we have carried with us not true reality encapsulated in a moment of time but a flawed understanding of what might have transpired?

A few years ago, my doctor abruptly closed his office, leaving his patients to scramble for medical care. Friends referred me to another doctor in town and I showed up for my appointment wearing khaki slacks and a royal blue blouse. I completed the paperwork and a nursing assistant took me to the exam room to discuss particulars. She noted that I had written my vocation as “author” and she called me a liar; she said it was obvious that I worked at Wal-Mart because I was wearing the Wal-Mart “uniform”. (Who knew blue and khaki was a uniform?)

She then asked me about my medical history, and I explained that I was taking Lyrica (a non-opiate, non-addictive, non-psychoactive medication that is frequently prescribed for fibromyalgia) due to nerve damage caused by a botched heart ablation that had been carefully documented in my medical records. A few minutes later, after the nursing assistant had left the room, the doctor entered. Before I could speak, he held up his hand to silence me and told me that he had only come into the room to tell me that he did not want me as a patient and he did not prescribe pain medication. He then walked out without giving me a chance to respond.

If you were to speak to that nursing assistant, no doubt she would relay her memory of that day: how a Wal-Mart employee tried to disguise herself as an author to get pain pills. She might have relayed that information to the doctor as well, and without checking the classification of Lyrica and when and how it is used, he jumped to the conclusion that I was a drug addict there to get opiates for non-existent pain—which is how I was treated. But their memories of that encounter would be flawed by their own perceptions. I have never worked at Wal-Mart, I’ve had 21 books published to date, I have never taken opiates—and I don’t even drink because I never want to lose control of my own senses and actions.

In writing, we see everything through the lens of the character. Their telling of the story (called point of view) is impacted by their beliefs and their often-flawed perception. It may be impacted by their religion or spiritual beliefs, by their cultural and societal upbringing, and even by what they want to see versus what is really unfolding before them.

An example is a comparison of books about the American Civil War. Shelby Foote was a Mississippian (born November 17, 1916 in Greenville, the heart of the Mississippi Delta, died June 27, 2005 in Memphis) who wrote, among other things, The Civil War: A Narrative, which contributed to Ken Burns’ acclaimed documentary series The Civil War. The books are written from the point of view of a Mississippi Southerner that remembered the class system of the Deep South, the ingrained beliefs, cultural and societal influences, and within the framework of many that still fly the Confederate flag today.

Compare his work to The Twentieth Maine by John J. Pullen, about the 20^th Maine Infantry Regiment led by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Pullen was born in Amity, Maine in 1914. In contrast to Foote’s Southern prose, Pullen’s work is written from the perspective of Northerners, framed in their commitment to keep the United States intact, surrounded by a culture that did not understand—and was horrified by—the slave trade in the Deep South, impacted further by a Mainer’s cultural and societal influences.

Each author tells the stories of Antietam, Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg and both culminating with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Both authors relied heavily on letters, journals and records of men that fought in those battles, yet each tells of a completely different experience. Even when their days were the same, consisting of forced marches through mosquito-infested swamps or hunkering down in ice and snow seeking to survive against frigid temperatures and wicked winds, they tell completely different stories because each is not a snapshot of memories but snapshots of perception and their roles within them.

Whether your memories consist of moments in your childhood, work days or relationships, it is often stunning how differently someone that was with you remembers the same events. Taken in this context, our memories are not actually reality with a firm, unmovable setting or scene—but our individual perceptions of moments in time.

In psychology, subjects are often brought back to those moments not only to relive them but to reframe them, and in reframing them they rewrite their own history.

Join the discussion about this topic and more by joining me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pmterrell.author/.

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Slaying Some Dragons

[If you’d prefer to watch a video version of this blog, visit my YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/uJBkk6BjE6U or watch at the bottom of this blog.]

Heroes in real life as well as in fiction encounter a variety of dragons they must slay. Some are internal, some external, and some require them to leave their families behind in order to experience the journey toward their ultimate purpose or mission.

Homer Hickam is a West Virginia coal miner’s son. His father, his extended family and his community expected him to follow his father’s path and vocation into the coal mines. His memoir, Rocket Boys, tells of his father’s adamant opposition to Homer’s obsession with rocketry after the first Sputnik launch. While other teens were preparing for a life underground, he was experimenting with propulsion even though his father, a mine superintendent, was a constant reminder that his life seemed predestined for the harsh life of a coal miner.

In order for Homer to fulfill his true destiny, he had to break free of the invisible constraints of his environment. Instinctively, he put together a team of adults and fellow students that shared a belief in him and his ideas. Failing miserably at first with cherry bomb rockets, he refused to give up, eventually designing a rocket known as Auk XXXI that propelled 31,000 feet in altitude and going on to win a Gold Medal at the 1960 National Science Fair.

He left home, as so many heroes must do, first to attend Virginia Tech for a degree in Industrial Engineering, and then to join the military, eventually winding up in Huntsville, Alabama with the United States Army Aviation and Missile Command. His fascination and expertise in rocketry and space led him to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), where he worked on the Hubble Space Telescope deployment mission, trained crews for a number of Space Shuttle and Spacelab missions, and even worked on the International Space Station Program.

Homer, like every hero, discovers people in his community that are supportive of his ideas, providing advice and guidance. In fiction, often these are sages that may never leave home themselves; from the rather mundane life of a school teacher in coal country to unadorned, sometimes drab homes of an oracle or philosopher. Sometimes these individuals open the hero’s eyes to a life he could not otherwise have imagined. Other times, they open the hero’s eyes to his own internal capabilities and talents.

Sometimes the hero is able to perform his mission without ever leaving his community, but most often they find themselves on a journey that takes them far from home. In Checkmate: Clans and Castles, my ancestor William Neely leaves his home in Scotland to seek his fortune and his fate in Ulster. That move would set off a chain of events not only for himself but also for his descendants, eventually leading his great-grandchildren to immigrate to America. One descendant, another William Neely, would be one of the first to settle Fort Nashborough, clearing the area of trees around the fort so unfriendly Indian tribes could be spotted earlier. William would die in a Shawnee attack, his daughter Mary captured and held as a slave for three years before managing to escape.

In each of their lives, they followed the hero’s journey: William Neely of 1608 venturing away from all he had ever known to follow his destiny in Ireland; William Neely of 1779 moving his cattle westward, his family following on their own fateful river journey that would change their lives forever (River Passage); and Mary Neely’s capture, captivity and escape in which she had to find the hero within herself not only to persevere and survive but eventually to triumph over her captors (Songbirds are Free).

Books show us what is possible in our lives even when we are surrounded by people insisting on us living mediocre lives. They open the door to different worlds, various cultures, bygone eras and always, always the hero. And in the end, they show us that in each of us lives a hero; in each of us lives a mission and a purpose that not only propels us forward but reaches back to offer a hand to those behind us, lighting the way. And with each one that follows, the trail becomes wider, the dragons sparser, the journey easier.

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When the Hero Moves

If you'd prefer to watch the video blog, skip to the bottom or visit https://youtu.be/32-7WgA8cqI. 

Moving to a new location is a theme encountered from the classics to contemporary genre. In a physical move, the hero leaves behind all that he or she has known. This can include family and friendships, a career and coworkers, hobbies or volunteer work, and the familiarity of home. That familiarity can extend to everything that affects a daily life, from the local grocery to a dentist to places the hero has passed every day without thought.

The move throws the hero into the unknown. Perhaps they move to a small town in pursuit of serenity, only to discover the house they move into is haunted—a theme which I used in Vicki’s Key. Moving can be found in horror, thrillers, suspense—but also in romance and comedy.

Regardless of the genre, the hero encounters the unexpected and may go through trials and tribulations before emerging on the other side, better for the experience they had undergone, because in the process they discovered strengths and talents and even renewed purpose.

My mother was born in Spring Hill, Tennessee long before the auto plant was built that caused the tiny town of 416 citizens to swell to more than 37,000. She was grown before their house had a telephone, and her grandparents that lived in the county never did get indoor plumbing. It was expected that my mother would never move but would live out her entire lifetime in that town of 416 (give or take a death or birth) much as her mother and her grandmother had.

But Mom married a man that would become an FBI Special Agent at a time when agents were transferred on a routine basis. By the time I came along, they were living in Washington, DC and over the next ten years we would move to Cleveland, Ohio, Waldwick and Washington Township, New Jersey, Monterey and Pacific Grove, California, and to the Mississippi Delta. The woman that was accustomed to living in a town where one could walk to all four points and literally where everyone knew her name found herself living in an apartment in downtown DC and homes in the north that were completely different from the culture where she had grown up.

I never experienced fear or trepidation when we were told we were moving, because my mother made every move into a game. Moving excited and invigorated her, and she passed those positive thoughts to her children. She treated each move like the new chapter that it was; knowing doors would open and our lives would be richer and deeper for the experience. Not every move was positive; apartment living with three young children and thin walls had to have been nerve-wracking for a young mother—but I remember how proud she was when she navigated a city bus with us one day, purely for the experience. And though I was convinced our home in Mississippi was haunted, she found the silver lining—and blamed my nightmares on Barnabas Collins.

As I look back at my moves, I remember participating in the Monarch Butterfly Parade in California; the swing set I loved in Cleveland and how tree roots buckled the sidewalks, which made walking them an adventure akin to Middle Earth. I remember Christmas in shorts on a California day, and Christmas bundled under so many layers that my elbows couldn’t bend in New Jersey.

And later, I would move alone from a sleepy town in the Mississippi Delta back to the place of my birth in Washington, DC, an experience I drew from when writing Kickback.

The heroes in books might relish the move, or they might seek to avert it, but when the book opens to find our hero heading for an unfamiliar place, we know whatever they find will forever transform them and make them into the people they eventually become.

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