The Murderess and the Monkey

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: You are not going to believe this story.  It’s just–wild!

First (and this part you will  believe) I am a massive fan of Sharon Short–you also may know and love her as Jess Montgomery. Right? 

But under her real name, she’s just published (from Minotaur)  the instantly terrifically successful and completely immersive TROUBLE ISLAND.

(Pause: isn’t that the most evocative title ever?)

So when she was asked “where did the idea come from? She said…

Well, here she is to tell the incredible story. (And a giveaway below!)

Two Great Ideas That Go Great Together

By Sharon Short 

When I was a kid, I got a kick out of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercials with the tag line “two great tastes that taste great together,” referring to the combo of peanut butter and chocolate. Anyone else remember those? I especially liked the one where the teen boy and girl run into each other. https://youtu.be/O7oD_oX-Gio?si=ATo1bewBK6Mi-8AR)

As I’ve had the privilege of giving book talks and interviews about TROUBLE ISLAND, my standalone suspense debut just out from Minotaur Books, I’ve been asked about where I got the idea for the novel. And each time as I’ve answered, the “two great tastes” tag line has echoed in my head.

TROUBLE ISLAND is set on the Lake Erie private island owned by a Prohibition gangster’s estranged wife, an alleged murderess—forced into hiding as the wife’s servant—plots her escape just as the gangster and a rogue ice storm make unexpected landfall.

And the “two great tastes” that came together to form the core of the idea—the alleged murderess and the island—lived in my imagination for decades before they ran into each other.

Let’s start with the murderess.

A week or so before I married my husband—forty-one years ago at Christmas time—I was visiting with his family when my future mother-in-law approached me and my soon-to-be sister-in-law.

She had two rings—one a lovely diamond ring that had been my sister-in-law and husband’s grandmother’s wedding ring, the other an also lovely but much smaller ring that had been their grandmother’s sister’s (their Great-Aunt Ruth’s) wedding ring. My mother-in-law gave the grandmother’s ring to my sister-in-law and Great-Aunt Ruth’s ring to me—and my sister-in-law immediately offered to trade.

I asked “why?” and my sister-in-law—who had yet to fully realize how much I value a great story—told me Great-Aunt Ruth’s saga.

She’d been married to Pony, an abusive man who was a wanna-be mobster. They could not have children, and she adopted a pet monkey who she named Betty after Betty Grable. 

One day in the 1950s, Pony was furious, yet again, but instead of hitting Ruth, he picked up Betty and threw her across the room into a wall, whereupon Ruth grabbed his gun from the coffee table and shot him dead. She’d finally been pushed too far.

Ruth went to jail, Betty to the humane society.

My far in the future father-in-law, just starting out as an attorney, defended his aunt, and between a technicality and the well-known and documented abuse Ruth had endured, she did not face trial. She and Betty were reunited and moved back to Ruth’s small Ohio hometown to live out their natural days.

Well, after hearing that story, there was no way I was trading rings. Mine came with a great story!

But what to do, what to do with Aunt Ruth as a character? I imagined an essay, maybe a short story, but nothing quite felt right.

Fast forward about eighteen years later. I was chaperoning our older daughter, then in the fifth grade, on a visit to Stone Lab, The Ohio State University’s biological research station located on South Bass Island just off the coast of Ohio in Lake Erie. Another chaperone approached and pointed to a sliver of land on the horizon.

The tiny island, my fellow chaperone said, had belonged to some mysterious bootlegging gangster who built a mansion on the island during Prohibition…

Then a fifth grader got into some fifth grade shenanigans and off we ran to intervene.

But my imagination had already taken the bait. An island with a mansion owned by a Prohibition gangster? Oh… what a great setting! But what to do, what to do with it?

Now, it seems obvious. What if an Aunt Ruth inspired character moved back in time just a few decades and ended up on that island owned by a gangster…

And yet… many more years would pass before the Aunt Ruth idea and the Lake Erie gangster island idea finally ran into one another. About four years ago, they finally did, and it was just like peanut butter and chocolate coming together: two great ideas that work great together.

The result: TROUBLE ISLAND, an historical suspense that has plenty of mysteries, twists, and turns.

For me, though, one mystery remains unsolved. Why did it take my imagination more than twenty years to bring together Ruth and the island? I’ve heard writing advice that states one must develop an idea right away or it will go stale—but that has not been my experience with many ideas.

The story of Ruth simmered in the back of my mind for nearly forty years, and the setting of the island for twenty, neither working on their own, before finally they, figuratively, ran into each other and I had a moment of “ahhh…”—there’s the story.

Maybe mysteries of the imagination are meant to remain mysteries. In TROUBLE ISLAND, though, mysteries are solved—and I finally feel I’ve given Ruth’s story her due.

The novel is dedicated “In memory of Great Aunt Ruth. And to all the women who’ve survived their versions of Pony.”

 

Leave a comment, and one Jungle Red reader’s name will be drawn at random to receive a copy of TROUBLE ISLAND.

 

HANK: I have NEVER heard a story like this, NEVER!  And Sharon, congratulations on the massive buzz about his book–you know I absolutely loved it!

And I’m so interested in what Sharon said about disagreeing with “I’ve heard writing advice that states one must develop an idea right away or it will go stale…”

I agree, Sharon, sometimes it needs to percolate.

But I know Elizabeth Gilbert (is that right?) says the muse offers you an idea, and you MUST take it, or she will give it to someone else.

How about you, Reds and Readers? Surprising relatives, anyone? And do you think ideas vanish if you don’t use them right away? 

And don't forget--leave a comment to be entered to win TROUBLE ISLAND!

 

Sharon Short is the award-winning author of more than fifteen published books. Her newest, Trouble Island, is historical suspense (Minotaur Books), set in 1932 and partly inspired by true family history. Under the pen name Jess Montgomery, she also writes the Kinship Historical Mysteries, set in 1920s Appalachia. Short is a contributing editor to Writer’s Digest, for which she writes the column, “Level Up Your Writing (Life)" and teaches for Writer’s Digest University. She is also a three-time recipient of the Individual Excellence Award in Literary Arts from Ohio Arts Council and has been a John E. Nance Writer in Residence at Thurber House (Columbus, Ohio). When not writing, Sharon enjoys spending time with family and friends, reading, swimming, and hiking. Learn more about her work at www.sharonshort.com.