Our May newsletter release day falls on Mother’s Day here in the United States. Days honoring motherhood and the influence of mothers go back to antiquity and are celebrated in many countries.
For example, Mothering Sunday in the United Kingdom is celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent. Here in the United States, it’s the second Sunday in May. The modern celebration in the United States goes back to 1908, while in ancient times, the Greeks paid homage to Cybele and the Romans celebrated the festival of Hilaria.
Mothers play prominent roles in our mystery fiction. This month, D. Z. highlights two mothers from her novels, while Janet looks at mother-daughter relationships in her books.
Protagonists wouldn’t exist without them. Of course, you don’t need a mother in a story. Oh, they may get an honorable mention, maybe a visit sometime during a series. But those real moms, the ones who shape the narrative, who live and breathe in a book, are great fun to conjure up.
Take Delia Tvieg Washburn in Saving Calypso, and Edith Countryman in The Wanee Mysteries. Delia is tall, graceful, blonde and filled with light. Edith is tall, dark, handsome and filled with rage. No. They’re both filled with rage, one to save her boy, one to set herself free.
Every day is Mother’s Day for Delia. She is devoted to her boy, Grieg. She would do anything to make him whole, even if it means hovering over his every move.
For five years, Delia had watched her son finger the blades of knives, risk his life wrenching new acquisitions from warlords in Afghanistan and headhunters in New Guinea, sail too far out to sea, and jump from planes. He wandered his life uneasy in his skin, an amalgam of loss, hurt, and grief. No one approached him from the gathered crowd, but he was on everyone’s lips. Which both angered and hurt Delia, she didn’t know how to shelter him other than in her arms.
Edith Countryman, not so much.
An occasional sharp thwack broke the silence in the house, reminding Cora that she was alone and on her own. It was daunting to consider what faced her, taking care of this house, feeding Josiah, and mounting a search for her mother. If she searched. Edith Countryman had walked out the door without saying goodbye or leaving a note. And it was even possible she had no desire for her children to find her. —From Unbecoming a Lady
Yet, both of their children are tied to them. Cora can’t help wondering why her mother abandoned her, alone, still in short skirts, and in debt. Grieg must prove to his mother that he has forgiven himself for his past actions to free them both.
I love both these ladies. I am perhaps a bit more partial to Delia, whom I find a hoot. She will do anything for her boy. Anything!
“Get my son off that mountain!” Delia ordered.
“Not to mention his beloved helicopter mom. Delia, you aren’t responsible for the original accident any more than Grieg. You’ve cosseted Grieg, protected him, excused him, fought for him. It’s time for Grieg to fledge, show us how high he can fly.” —From Saving Calypso
Edith, well, she’s got her issues.
The man led their exit through a shadowed door into the dimming evening light. As she stepped through the door to follow, the woman turned, meeting Cora’s eyes for the briefest of moments. It was indeed her mother whose chill eyes denied recognition of her own daughter. She turned with a shake of her feathers and exited in the man’s footsteps. —From The Orleans Lady
In developing characters, I create their backstory until I know the skin they inhabit, their backgrounds, their beliefs and their fears. Fears, perhaps, most of all. Delia fears for her son. Edith fears her past. Delia is loved, free, and wealthy. Edith is unloved, fettered, and grasping, still …
Edith Countryman walked to the edge of the bow deck, again placed her hands on her hips, and surveyed The Orleans Lady until her eyes trained on the Boiler Deck. After a short time, she beckoned, then waited for a return signal. When none came, she reentered the boat. Cora checked the side of the promenade visible to the gunboat. She was the only occupant of the Boiler Deck. This meant that whoever her mother awaited was above or below her. Unless the wave was for her? —From The Orleans Lady
Mothers! You have to love them and the depth they can add to a tale.
Mothers and daughters. An essential relationship, one that can be loving and rewarding—and can also be frustrating and problematic. Fireworks make for good fiction.
Mother-and-daughter relationships appear frequently in my fiction, coloring characters and plots, even affecting setting. In Kindred Crimes, the first novel in the 14-book series featuring Oakland private investigator Jeri Howard, I mention the fact that Jeri doesn’t get along with her mother.
Jeri is a lifelong Bay Area resident, close to her father, history professor Tim Howard. Her mother Marie is a chef who was born and raised in Monterey, on the California coast. As Jeri puts it in that first book, it’s a “cold water shock” when her mother decides to leave her father and return to Monterey, where she opens her own restaurant.
With that back story, of course I had to send Jeri to Monterey to visit her mother. You can imagine how that turned out. Start out with a prickly relationship. Cracks begin to appear.
For example, Jeri has doubts about her mother’s new boyfriend, and this grates on Marie.
“Good God, Jeri, I think you’ve been playing Sam Spade for too many years. Sometimes you take this detective stuff too far. You always act as though people are guilty of something. Everyone’s a suspect to you.”
Her disparaging tone grated on me. It always did, when she acted as thought “the detective stuff” was a phase I was going through. That hadn’t stopped her from asking me to look into the sabotage at her damn restaurant.
Words escalate into fireworks and Jeri leaves, slamming the door on her way out. As the series progresses, though, Jeri’s relationship with her mother improves.
In The Sacrificial Daughter, my protagonist is Kay Dexter, a geriatric care manager. She has left her practice in the Bay Area and moved to her hometown, Rocoso, in the Sierra Nevada. This change was prompted by her need to be there, physically and emotionally, for her aging mother, Rose. They have a good relationship.
But that’s not the only mother-daughter relationship in the book. Kay’s new client Sheryl Garvin is concerned about her elderly mother, Betty, who has the usual array of physical problems as well as issues with memory loss. When she hires Kay to manage Betty’s care, she says her younger sister Hallie is no longer in the picture. Then Hallie shows up, insisting she can care for Betty herself, and fires Kay. As it turns out, the two sisters have a thorny relationship going back years. Plenty of fireworks! Kay witnesses a nasty verbal confrontation that breaks up with Hallie’s boyfriend intervenes and hauls her into the house.
I discovered I’d been holding my breath and released it in a sigh. How quickly the conversation between the two sisters devolved into battle. . . .
“Why?” Betty cried, tears running down her face as she appealed to Sheryl. “Why are you and your sister always at each other’s throats? I hate it. Why can’t you get along? I won’t be around forever and you’ll only have each other.”
My standalone novel, What You Wish For features Lindsey Page, a single mother who has never told her daughter Nina who her father is. Lindsey has her reasons and to her they are good reasons. But a lifetime of no answers has left Nina simmering with resentment. Eventually, Lindsey reveals the information that Nina wants. But it only makes things worse. Nina reacts with anger.
“. . . I’m hurt. And I’m pissed. I feel as though my whole identity has been stolen from me.”
Lindsey’s voice sharpened. “It’s not always about you, Nina. Your identity doesn’t not depend on the man who fathered you. You are who you are. You’re also my daughter. I love you. That should be enough.”
“Well, it’s not.” Nina turned away.
Mothers and daughters. Let’s face it. If all was sweetness and light between these characters—or any characters, for that matter—fiction would be boring.