STORY OF UNWED PREGNANCY IS UNIVERSAL

REAL PEOPLES STORIES:

Recently I spoke to a couple of people that made me appreciate that many people relate to Family at Booknook in a very personal way.

When I was signing novels at the Adrian Meijer, a gray haired woman, aged beyond her years, yet not old enough for social security asked me about Booknook. She smiled knowingly and stated that her teenage daughter had had a baby out of wedlock some twenty years ago. The woman had given her daughter two choices: give up the baby for adoption or keep her. If the daughter wanted to keep her child, she, the grandmother, would help. The daughter chose the latter. When I asked how it had turned out, the grandmother indicated that her daughter had married and had a happy life. Then came the sad part.

The woman that I was talking with had recently been abandoned by her husband and had lived in her car for four months. Although she now has a tiny apartment, she has only a part time job. While we visited, she ran her fingers down the spine of a book. I asked if she liked to read. She said, “Oh, yes.” I offered to give her a book. She demurred but I persisted.

I met the second person before Christmas. While buying crab at Meijer, I quizzed the seafood man on its preparation. In the course of the conversation, I mentioned that his store was selling my novel. When he asked, I gave him the briefest synopsis.

Then he said, “That’s my story. My mother had me at sixteen in an unwed mothers’ home. She wasn’t going to keep me, but my grandmother talked her into it.” He stated that his grandmother had been instrumental in raising him and was like a mother to him. He was devastated when she died.

It was touching to connect with two people in such an intimate way. When they heard about Sparrow, Dave and Finch, it triggered memories of their own life shaping experiences. In each of these cases the grandmother was instrumental in helping her daughter keep and raise a child. And in Booknook it is Dave, the surrogate grandfather, who enables Sparrow to keep her baby.

Then when I was checking out Amazon Books, I ran across the following comment.

Sheila L. Wasung, “Nook Hooked” from Amazon Comments:
“This book brought back an era in which my own childhood and adolescence was spent. Sparrow endured what so many young women of this era experienced with the shame of unwed motherhood. I am so pleased that the author was able to capture the attitudes and climate of the '50s,'60's, and '70s in the USA. I found it somewhat nostalgic, even though the circumstances were less than desirable.”