Childhood's End

First, headlines! 

The winner of THE BLACK HOUR is mauisun411! Email Hank h ryan at whdh dot com with your address--and congratulations!

THE OTHER WOMAN is now just $2.99 on all e platforms! But not for long. http://www.HankPhillippiRyan.com

and now: 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  It's Saturday morning, and as we learned yesterday from Lori Rader-Day, there'll be no more binge-watching of cartoons. But that just gives us more time to listen to a great story.

A story of a different kid of childhood. Maybe--with no cartoons.

Today Lisa Alber spins us quite the intriguing tale. Again, about being at a certain place at a certain time.  A tale of her childhood, and how it haunts her dreams today, and how it changed her life.

The Mystery I’d Most Like to Solve

                  by Lisa Alber

Picture this: Six-year-old Little Lisa (LL for short) sits on an olive-green recliner. She’s waiting to walk to school with an older neighbor girl, Laura Parrish, who is in fifth grade. Every day LL tries to slip past Laura’s house by skulking behind parked cars. Sometimes she makes it and gets to walk to school alone even though she’s too young for that. Most often, she’s caught out and banished to the gloomy living room while Laura finishes her breakfast. The musty curtains are always closed, the shag rug always un-vacuumed. LL makes a game of bouncing her hands off her thighs in different rhythms. It’s hard—her hands want to sync up—but over time she improves. She does this so she doesn’t have to think too much about who’s down the murky hallway.

The scary brothers just home from a war in Vietnam.

There’s something wrong with them, something wrong with the mom who plays guitar and sings “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head,” something wrong with the buttoned-up businessman dad, and, most of all, something wrong with Laura, who pees her bed.

Of course, Little Lisa doesn’t know this consciously; she senses the wrongness of everything about this house. Knows that this house is in some fundamental way not a safe place for little girls.

***

Wow, Hank, when you asked me to write a post for Jungle Reds, I expected to keep it light. This memory arrived instead. But at least I know why.

It’s this: The other day I got to thinking about the inevitability of me writing mystery/crime fiction rather than, say, romance or women’s fiction. Inevitable because the mystery of Laura has followed me around since I was a kid. To this day, for example, I dream about murky, inescapable houses when I’m under stress. It’s my go-to anxiety dream.

As for my writing, I gravitate toward stories about families with secrets. I often incorporate moody buildings—or some other thick, cloying environmental factor—in my stories. And since my first impression of the world outside my home was one laden with danger, I guess it’s not surprising that I’d write stories about dangerous situations.

I’ve tried to find Laura over the years. Every once in a while I Google her name. About a decade ago, I visited the old neighborhood and realized that I’d remembered her home address, 5 Dellwood Court, but not my own. I knocked on the front door, hoping that somehow a Parrish still lived there. Where’s Laura? I’d ask. What’s she doing? Did she end up OK—or a drug addict—or worse? And, most of all, what the hell was going on in her effed-up household?!?

There was even the time about, oh, eight years ago when, in a fit of despair, I set aside what would become my debut novel, Kilmoon, and started a new piece, in which, yes, I tried to solve the mystery of Laura through fiction. Writing that novel led to the revelation that I’d suffered from PTSD as a child. Seriously. Is that crazy, or what?

(Aside: We moved away from the neighborhood when I was seven—thank goodness; life saver!)

Am I sad or bitter about my less-than-bucolic early childhood? Nah. I’m fascinated. 

I’m fascinated by psychology, in general, and by how we become the adults we turn out to be. I can be anxious and high-strung—you spend enough time in an oppressive house in which amputee’d, drug-addled men (with PTSD no doubt) jump out of closets at you—well, so it goes.

In the end, Laura was probably as big an influence on my early development as my parents. For all I know, I have Laura to thank for my writing life because while I sat on that dingy recliner bouncing my hands against my thighs, I used to sink deep into other worlds. I Iived in imaginary worlds.

So, thank you, Laura. I hope you’re OK out there somewhere. You’re still the mystery I would most like to solve.

Jungle Redians, do you have a life-long mystery you wish you could solve? Or some remnant from your childhood that still follows you around? How do you think this influenced your development—and writing life, if you’re a writer?

HANK: Well, I still watch for tornadoes, as I used to when I was a kid, all the result of Wizard of Oz, of course.  I dream of houses, too, but they are lovely. Which I  think makes yours even more fascinating. But you know as a writer, I always worry when I can't give someone a happy ending, or when I have to write about someone saying goodbye. I know, absolutely, where in my childhood that came from. 

How about you, Reds?

******************************

About KILMOON

Californian Merrit Chase travels to Ireland to meet her father, a celebrated matchmaker, in hopes that she can mend her troubled past. Instead, her arrival triggers a rising tide of violence, and Merrit finds herself both suspect and victim, accomplice and pawn, in a murderous game that began thirty years previously. Family secrets, betrayal, and vengeance from beyond the grave—Merrit has just discovered her long-lost father.

This first in Alber’s new County Clare Mystery series is utterly poetic … The author’s prose and lush descriptions of the Irish countryside nicely complement this dark, broody and very intricate mystery.

     —RT Book Reviews (four stars)

In her moody debut, Alber skillfully uses many shades of gray to draw complex characters who discover how cruel love can be.

     —Kirkus Reviews

Brooding, gothic overtones haunt Lisa Alber’s polished, atmospheric debut. Romance, mysticism, and the verdant Irish countryside all contribute to making Kilmoon a marvelous, suspenseful read.”

     —Julia Spencer-Fleming, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of
          Through the Evil Days

Lisa Alber received an Elizabeth George Foundation writing grant based on Kilmoon. Ever distractible, you may find her staring out windows, dog walking, fooling around online, or drinking red wine with her friends. Ireland, books, animals, photography, and blogging round out her distractions. Lisa lives in the Pacific Northwest. She is currently at work on her second novel set in Ireland.

You can find Lisa at: website | Facebook | Twitter | blog