Integration and Invention

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.

Musical Chairs

Creating ‘musical chairs’ relationships in ensemble stories such as my Women in the Sun novels is a definite temptation—and one best resisted. I am sure you know what I mean by this. Couples break up and switch around love interests. We become invested in our characters and want to see how a new combination would work out. Such explorations can be intriguing.

The popular sit-com “Friends” did this with their characters. They shuffled relationships around a few times before landing on the final versions. That wasn’t the only show to do it, of course. It is almost a cliché with comedies of that sort.

And so, best avoided in our fiction, as much as we might like to see so-and-so with such-and-such. There are better and fresher ways to explore relationships. We shouldn’t be afraid to bring in new characters and allow former love interests to fade away, as they tend to do in real life. I admittedly have no idea who my characters will wind up with a few books down the line (assuming I get to write those books). I’ve left their futures open-ended. It would be far too tedious to write about them if I knew everything that was going to happen!

I admit to being guilty of just a little of the musical chairs approach. It seems possible Ronnie’s former boyfriend, Alan, is going to have a relationship with her best friend, Joey. Or will all that foreshadowing go to waste? Beyond that, your guess is every bit as good as my own.

 

Hippies

By the time my two ‘Women in the Sun’ novels* are set, 1968 and the beginning of 1969, hippies were part of the culture. I have had characters use the term—mostly older characters and in a derogatory sense, admittedly. But true hippies, true young counter-cultural sorts, were exceedingly rare in a rather conservative southern town like Naples.

This, of course, didn’t keep the clothes from showing up! Fashion goes everywhere and television helped spread it more quickly than ever. Hair grew longer. Flared jeans replaced narrow-legged ‘mod’ trousers. Paisleys and flowers appeared on shirts, and both sexes took to wearing beads.

Do any of my characters embrace the hippie lifestyle? Not really and not yet; things may and probably will change if I continue the story of my ‘triumvirate’ of young women. They are not quite the hippie generation, in truth. Older brothers and sisters who had moved on to other places would have been more likely to adopt the hippie culture. By the time of my tales, the world was already leaving the Sensational Sixties behind and slipping toward the Cynical Seventies.

Peace and love and optimism were becoming the casualties of the changing times. Nixon had been elected president in the USA. Things seemed grimmer than they had a year or two before, during the ‘Summer of Love,’ during the height of the counter-culture. The ’68 riots at the Democratic convention Chicago pointed the direction things were going.

And in ’69, Woodstock shared the summer with the Manson murders, while the war in Vietnam ground on. But hippie culture lingered on, lingered at least through the first half of the Seventies, though not with the vigor and freshness of the previous decade.

Will any of my characters become, in any sense, hippies? I think we can see that James embraced some of what was going on. He was the one who traveled, who got away from the narrower world the others inhabit. It is just possible he will be the one to ‘drop out.’ Or not! We shall simply have to wait and see what happens to him and his friends.

Birth Control

Pregnancy did not come up in “One Summer in the Sun” nor in the sequel. It just might in the next book, if I write it someday. Not any of our ‘triumvirate,’ to be sure, but perhaps an acquaintance. I have ideas for this (it would probably not be Paulette, the black friend introduced in "One Christmas in the Sun;” that comes off cliched).

Birth control was not so simple a matter in 1968. It was not always easy for an unmarried woman to have access to ‘the pill.’ I mentioned in ‘Summer’ that Kris’s mother had made sure she would, and Kris (undoubtedly with Mom’s input) helped Ronnie when she asked for advice. That was fortunate, as Ronnie ‘lost’ her virginity (is that like misplacing it?) in the course of the story.

Joey remains a virgin—and a Catholic—but we can be sure she has given the question its due consideration. After all, she is going to have sex eventually. I’m not going to keep her from it forever!

Be all that as it may, pregnancy and birth control were important factors in life then, just as important as Vietnam and the draft, or racism. The ‘sexual revolution’ had arrived and I am certainly not going to ignore it. But one can fit only so much in one book (and have it remain readable).

Naples Locales

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.

 

Catholic Porn

Catholic literature is rarely pious. In ways that sometimes trouble or puzzle both Protestant and secular readers, Catholic writing tends to be comic, rowdy, rude, and even violent. ~ Dana Gioia

My “One Summer in the Sun” has been jokingly (I hope) referred to as ‘Catholic porn.’ It is true there is a certain amount of Catholicism in it. It is also true there is adult content—graphic sex. I do not see much, if any, conflict between the two.

That is because both are about passion. Religion should be passionate; it should be a love affair. As should life! There is certainly a long tradition of spiritual passion among the mystics of Catholicism, a tradition of embracing God’s creation. But that is not what ‘One Summer’ is about. Not really. I did not set out to write a ‘Catholic novel’ in any sense.

Catholicism plays a fairly small role. Yes, one of the three main protagonists in “Summer” is a practicing Catholic. Yes, a major secondary character is considering the priesthood. And yes, I grew up in the church and am Catholic. I suppose that makes me a ‘Catholic writer’ in at least some sense of the word.

And it does shape my views and my views, in turn, shape the story. If one wishes to read the sexual scenes as porn, so be it. For me, they were inseparable from that story. That story is about friendship and searching and love and, yes, passion.

Guitars

There is a certain amount of guitar playing in the pages of ‘One Summer in the Sun.’ Only one of my three main protagonists is a player, and she only fools about with an inexpensive instrument from Sears until she becomes involved with Alan. Her father plays too, being a folk music enthusiast, and keeps his prized Martin classical guitar tucked away under the bed. Yes, like Willie Nelson plays, but in those days the ‘name’ players were guys like Burl Ives and Marty Robbins.

Alan owns a Gibson Hummingbird and has bluegrass tendencies. The precision of that style of playing appeals to him. Of course, he flat-picks the instrument and is pretty proficient at it, though not inclined to show off. When chided about his taste in guitars by James ‘Jam’ Summerlin, he responds that Keith Richards claims it is the perfect acoustic for rock and roll.

Jam’s twin sister, Angelica aka ‘Jelly,’ is a musical prodigy, a player of the classical guitar. I did not specify a particular maker, only that it was a high end Spanish instrument. Her parents can afford it. And they could certainly afford to buy Jam a good guitar too, though he is less serious (although talented) about playing. I gave him a Gibson F-25, their ‘Folksinger’ model from the Sixties. He hadn’t pulled it out of the closet and played in a couple years, but being among players during summer vacation led him to renew his acquaintance with the guitar.

 

a Gibson F-25

By the way, the one in the included picture is set up for metal strings (slanted bridge) but it’s essentially the same instrument as the nylon stringed guitar Jam plays.

So why did I make some of my characters guitar players? It was certainly a way of letting them bond; they are rather different people otherwise. Then too, I know a little about guitars and music. Mostly, the guitars just seemed a fitting symbol of that time, the summer of 1968, and my slightly naive, innocent bunch of kids