St Anne Catholic church in Naples FL, and its attached parochial school, is mentioned here and there in the Women in the Sun novels. The church (pictured here) was the original building from the Fifties; the larger one in use today was being built at the time the stories are set, the late Sixties. St Anne church is close to the oldest downtown area, near the pier and beach. The interior photo is most likely from sometime in the Sixties.
Way back, the Collier County library was located in what is now the upscale Third Street shopping area, backing up to the old Naples Hotel and the pier area. This was pretty much the original 'downtown' part of Naples. It moved to its current location near what was then the junior high school in the mid-Sixties.
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| the old library |
The protagonist trio of my 'Sun' novels are just old enough to have been there for the change, and would have visited the library at both locations. For Joey and Ronnie, it would have been a favored after-school location (and Kris would have gone along with it as a meet-up spot, at least sometimes). As I remember the old library, it was cramped and a bit chaotic, and really could not fill the needs of a growing Naples.
The new building was a considerable improvement, at least in function. Very modern in its architecture, a big change from the old one. Eventually, it was also expanded and a shopping center-like facade added. Not an improvement in my opinion!
This is a picture (via Google Street) of the house in Naples FL where I lived from when I was about two to six years old. It's in the Lake Forest area but I won't give the exact address. I used it as the model (even the location) for Joey's house in my Women in the Sun novels, with a few small adjustments (such as giving it an old-school Florida flat roof). It was a brand-new neighborhood back then and very barren; none of that greenery that has grown up around it since!
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| Lockheed Electra |
There was no reason to name the carrier in the novel, of course.
Maybe I’ll find a reason to in a sequel, if someone flies again! After
all, Lin Summerlin should be coming in for some summer vacation once
more in the next planned book. But she flew into Miami in her last
appearance and was driven to Naples. Larger carriers flew into Fort
Myers, too. I recall seeing big Constellations on the field there when I
was a kid. They looked big to me, anyway!
The field in Naples was built during the Second World War as a training facility. The barrack buildings still stood during the time my Sun books are set, the late Sixties. I wouldn’t be surprised if some do yet. They were remodeled as businesses and residences in the post-war period. I have Mackie remember living in one of them when he was a little kid. Admittedly, that was one of my own memories.
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| Naples train |
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| view of the Naples Pier, 1968 |
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| the old Naples Hotel |
The Hotel has appeared in my Women in the Sun novels, set in the late Sixties, but only in passing, not as a setting for any of the action. It was an object of nostalgia already in 1968. But I remember walking past it on my way to the pier in the evenings, with guests sitting on their screened porches, the scent of citronella wafting into the dusk. That will never come back, whatever they build.
One of the frequently used settings in both my Women in the Sun novels is the Summerlin House (aka the Salas House). This is a completely fictional building on the Naples beach, a little north of the pier. I don’t specify exactly how far north but we can assume two to four blocks; of course, there is no such real house at any of those locations (though one may find similar houses along the beach).
The house was—or so my protagonists understand—built in the late Twenties. That makes sense but if it was a few years later, it’s not going to hurt anything. The Salas family, wealthy Cubans, purchased the place in the Forties. When Maria Salas’s husband passed, she inherited and a little later married local lawyer Preston Summerlin. Hence the Summerlin House name.
All that matters to our story is that the Summerlin twins, Angelica and James—know as Jelly and Jam—make our ‘triumvirate’ of young women welcome there. Outside more than in; it becomes a site for goofing off when they want to go to the beach and more than one summer party is held on the spacious lawn. Fairly spacious, that is. Beachfront property is dear and folks are not likely to waste a lot of space on grass.
Nor is the house itself that large. Two stories, stucco over block, tile roof—very ‘Spanish.’ Remodeled from time to time, of course, since its original construction. It’s the sort of house that’s likely to get torn down and replaced these days, with the land under it being more valuable than the house itself.
We have drawn up a house plan. Very useful in helping to visualize the story! I think it is a pretty accurate rendition of what I had in mind. The Summerlin House will most definitely appear in future novels of my trio, though I suspect it will become less central to their lives.
For now (i.e. the late Sixties) it remains a place they will still be able to get together with their friends, beneath the tall coconut palms and hibiscus, and forget the tumultuous outside world for a little while.
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| the Summerlin House |
Sienna Santerre is (or should be) pretty obviously a pen name. I purposely chose something that sounded a bit made-up and created a fictional character to be Sienna Santerre.
Why use a pen name at all? In part, to distance the ‘real’ me (who
may be just as fictional when it comes down to it) from the subject
matter of my books. That real me did graduate from Naples High
in 1968. I did go through those times. I did know the kids that
inspired some of my characters and would just as soon—if by chance they
read my books and recognized something of themselves—they didn’t link
any of it to me. Not that I've actually hidden my real name.
And not that I would fear an angry mob of codgers coming for my blood. Still, it freed me up, some, to write what I wanted, without any caution.
I’ll admit the name choice was perhaps inspired, a little, by Elena Ferrante. After all, we both write about Naples, even if one sets her stories in Naples, Italy, and the other in Naples, Florida! To be sure, Santerre is a French name, not an Italian one.
Yes, we both write our fiction around a core of female friendship but there is not much resemblance beyond that. My characters live in a very different world, reflecting the culture and politics of the late Sixties. And, of course, they date surfers.
My second Women in the Sun novel came out on August 6, 2022. There may well be more in the series in time; I certainly didn’t wrap everything up with ‘One Christmas in the Sun,’ although it wouldn’t hurt a thing if I stopped there. I have ideas and notes and all of that, to be sure. We’ll just have to see—yeah, me too. I like to surprise myself.
Note: what with SS being a pen name, I am also turning out stories under other names, so I'm not malingering!
When I wrote ‘One Summer in the Sun,’ I had no idea whether there would be a sequel. The novel does stand on its own, with its own resolution. Yes, our three protagonists would go on with their lives. Yes, a reader might well be curious about those lives. But ‘One Summer’ does not need more than what I wrote.
None the less, I thought about the young women’s future quite a bit as I was writing, coming up with all sorts of ideas and scenarios—ones interesting enough (to me) fuel a sequel or two. Maybe more than two! So I wrote ‘One Christmas in the Sun,’ set a few months later and continued their stories, added new characters, new situations. Again, the second novel can stand on its own, requiring no sequel. It could be advantageous to read ‘One Summer’ first, but it is certainly not essential.
Where might I take the series next? It is a series now, I suppose! The next summer (1969) is the most likely setting, when everyone is together again, home in Naples, done with the first year of college. I am in no hurry to write that book, but I have been working on ideas for it. I’ve played with various titles. Maybe ‘Third Avenue’ or ‘The Sophisty-Kates Club.’ Or something else; the story itself will ultimately determine that.
I remember, when I was very small, my father driving into what was essentially a black slum in Naples. I am fairly sure it was in connection with hiring construction workers; Dad had always been comfortable with working with blacks, both in Naples and Ohio. He’d basically grown up with them, men who worked for his own father’s construction company up north.
Where exactly was it located? I could not tell you now. It was not the later River Park neighborhood. Or I don’t think so! I do remember the shabby little houses, the dirt roads. Mostly I remember the puppy we came home with. That made a much bigger impression on me.
I relied on both memory and research in locating the black neighborhoods as they existed in the time of segregation and shortly thereafter. They do play a part in “One Christmas in the Sun.” If I were uncertain of some detail—having conscientiously researched—I made up something plausible. A best guess. It is ultimately fiction, after all.
The timeline for the integration of schools in Naples may not be completely right, though I do know when the ‘black’ high school finally shut down and the last of its students went to Naples High. But integration had already been going on for a decade and more, and I reflected this in Will Booth showing up at Lake Park Elementary in the fourth grade.
The fact is, there was never a particularly large black population in Naples. Out of over two hundred graduates, only four black seniors were part of the class of 1968—and none of them had the least resemblance to Will.
At one point, before starting the first Women in the Sun novel (“One Summer in the Sun”), I did consider not using the name Naples for my setting, but creating a fictional analog. But there were so many details of the real town I wanted to use that I decided it was best to call it Naples. I am okay with that decision—and with whatever fiction I have mixed with reality.
That includes the characters themselves, of course. They are fictitious and ‘any resemblances to actual persons are coincidental,’ as the stock disclaimer has it. But real persons inspired me. Real places and real events inspired me to create the Naples of my stories.
Although they are situated in the ‘real’ Naples, I have not pinned down the exact locations of most of my characters’ homes in “One Summer in the Sun” and its sequel, “One Christmas in the Sun.” The Summerlin house is on the beach, a ‘little’ north of the pier, but I’m not specifying whether that is two, three, or four blocks. Somewhere in there! Nor is it based particularly on any actual house I know. It’s pretty much generic, the sort of place being built in the Twenties and Thirties.
Kris Greene and family would be somewhat further south and closer to the bay. Thirteenth? Fourteenth? Maybe, or possibly a tad further. But not as far as where Gordon ‘Grubby’ Rhein lives with his folks. That just might be in the Aqualane neighborhood.
Ronnie Deerfield is a good bit further north, just south of the Beach Golf Course. Broad Court, perhaps, or Sixth Avenue North? Close to them anyway. The Penns, incidentally, are somewhere around a half-dozen blocks further south and a little further west. And Joey is pretty much just on the other side of Highway Forty-one, aka the Tamiami Trail, as is the office of Ronnie’s dad, architect Howard Deerfield.
I have placed Joey in more-or-less the house I lived in when I was small. Joey, of course, is no longer small and her family has stayed put there all her life. The house is located on Eighth Terrace in the Lake Forest subdivision.
I’ve seen pictures of it and I know those old ‘Florida houses’ being built after WW2 and through the Fifties. Other styles became popular then, but the flat-roofed concrete block cottage was pretty common. With Terrazzo floors, more often than not, and jalousie windows. Air conditioning was still a rarity in the Fifties, so it was windows open on summer nights, and fans blowing.
Screens kept out the mosquitoes, for the most part, but the minuscule sand flies (the southwest Florida variant of the no-see-um) often found their way in. Folks attempted to grow grass in the sandy yards but sand spurs inevitably sprang up. In vacant lots, those were the norm. Here and there, one of the big pines would be left standing. That would be true in Ronnie’s neighborhood too.
The black characters I’ve mentioned mostly live in neighborhoods off Goodlette Road, but we haven’t visited any of their homes yet. That could certainly change. And the Wesolowskis are way up north in Pine Ridge. Or just outside Pine Ridge, maybe. Too far for any of the girls to be riding their bikes back and forth!
None of this is necessary to the reader but it helps me to able to look at a map and point out the neighborhoods, the routes they use for biking, walking, driving, the stores, the parks, and so on. It helps also to find house plans not too unlike the residences I have envisioned (or even sketch something myself). I like having a physical environment where I can set my characters down.
There are plenty enough bikes and scooters and automobiles in the pages of “One Summer in the Sun.” It would be dreary to list them all, largely out of context, so I shall simply show a few of them here. This is all in 1968, of course.
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| Preston Summerlin’s white Caddy |
Lawyer Preston Summerlin, father of James and Angelica—known to their friends as Jam and Jelly—is quite fond of his Sixty-two Cadillac de Ville convertible. The picture here is pretty much identical to it. Some of our characters do get to borrow it and cruise town one summer Sunday.
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| the Mini Moke |
Where they meet Gordon ‘Grubby’ Rhein, parked near the Naples pier in his Mini Moke. There was a Moke in Naples at the time the story is set, though it did not belong to any surfer-boy such as Grubby. But it seemed appropriate for him!
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| the mighty Solex moped |
Our final picture is of a Solex moped. There was one of these in the real Naples at the time, too, belonging to the individual who somewhat inspired the character Russel I blogged about a little while ago. In my narrative, it has been passed along to his younger sister, who tries to keep up with Jelly Summerlin on her shiny new red Vespa scooter.
Of all the characters in One Summer in the Sun, Russel Penn—a relatively minor supporting role—comes closest to the real life individual that inspired him. Most of the characters are composites or wholly invented and, to be sure, Russel isn’t really a portrait of anyone either. To distance him a little, I caricatured his family some—especially the sister, who is nothing like the real thing (except maybe in appearance).
Another version of Russel, that is, a character based on the same real-life individual, has appeared in a fairly well-known novel by another author (he is, in fact, her husband). For the most part, you would not know they were the same person. I certainly don’t treat him as sympathetically, though he still comes off as a ‘good guy.’ He’s just the sort my wise-cracking trio of main protagonists are likely to poke a little fun at, in private. To some degree, he symbolizes to them the high school life they have left behind.
If it hadn’t been for that book by that other author, I might never have used him at all. But how could I resist putting my own twist on him and the town in which he lived? Incidentally, I am pretty sure my portrayal of Naples, set a few years later, is somewhat more accurate than hers. Nothing beats growing up in a place.
This is going to be the new home of author Sienna Santerre. We're moving from a WordPress site; nothing against WordPress, this will just be more convenient and streamline the process for Arachis Press, which maintains the blog/site.
SS is the author of two 'Women in the Sun' novels, set in Naples Florida in 1968-9. More on that and on future projects as we get set up.
