My youngest son, Adam, just turned thirty-three; so doing the math, that makes me seventy times seventy. Or is that how many times he has to forgive me? Well, whatever.
Adam is my philosopher king. He’s the kid who is happy to give me less than five stars on my various full-length novels. The Amazon.com gods worry that our children or family will be overly positive when it comes to leaving reviews on their website, so they forbid such. I never have to worry about that.
He’s also the child that likes to engage me in a plethora of idea related debates. Then he films our discussions. And then he posts these interactions on line.
I’m not sure how I feel about this.
He never lets me put on makeup or change my shirt, and I’ve usually just finished cooking Sunday dinner for a mob of beggars so there may or may not be gravy stains on my clothing. The only light he provides is an electric GE camping lantern, if he can find it. So, half the time I look like I’ve smeared gravy in the bags under my eyes. And there’s never any rehearsal. It’s just shoot from my gravy stained hip. That I’m okay with.
The next debate he’s scheduled is titled, The Value of Reading Fiction, and on this topic, we’re probably going to be in sync. Fiction makes everything clearer.
For example: Thomas Tryon, a horror writer in the 1970’s wrote a truly cautionary tale called Harvest Home. In it, he detailed a remote northern town whose corn cult required human sacrifice and a fertility ceremony. I read it and made notes: never move north, never become a corn farmer, and never, ever peak at the secret “corn making” ceremony if you want to keep your tongue and your eyes. Sure, it’s fiction, but you never can tell.
Stephen King wrote a book about vampires before the vampires got sexy. My husband worked nights at the time, slept days, and I never saw him conscious when the sun was out. Never. I read Salem’s Lot and learned how to recognize a vampire when I saw one. It’s not a coincidence that the town where vampires were crawling all over the town dump was somewhere up north, probably next to the corn cult creeps.
And who, after reading Pat Frank’s Alas Babylon, doesn’t understand the importance of storing up salt against a nuclear attack from Russia. I’m ready.
Every work of fiction provides dry runs for life. What would you do if? What would you think when? How would you cope after? Where do you go during?
When we read books, we walk into worlds that don’t exist and face monsters that can’t be true, but at the end of every imaginary journey is the possibility that we will discover some small gem of truth that will aid us on our way in the real world above the fiction.
Linda (Ready For My Close Up) Zern
