{"id":2131,"date":"2020-07-03T06:00:27","date_gmt":"2020-07-03T13:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/?p=2131"},"modified":"2020-07-01T06:13:17","modified_gmt":"2020-07-01T13:13:17","slug":"closing-the-circle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/2020\/07\/03\/closing-the-circle\/","title":{"rendered":"Closing the Circle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the years I\u2019ve learned to categorize my readers. \u00a0There are DTRs\u2014dead tree readers; ARs\u2014audio readers; IORs\u2014in order readers. \u00a0Today I\u2019m adding another category to the list\u2014GRs\u2014geographical readers, some of whom only read the Seattle books and some who only read the Arizona books. \u00a0The most extreme version of a GR \u00a0 came to light when I was at a long gone bookstore in Seattle\u2019s Queen Anne Hill neighborhood. \u00a0I was signing my first hardback book, Hour of the Hunter<\/em>, which happened to be my first non-Beaumont book as well.<\/p>\n

A woman came up to the table and said, \u201cIs this book set in Seattle?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I told her. \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s set on and around an Indian reservation near Tucson, Arizona.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d she told me archly. \u00a0\u201cI only read books set on Queen Anne Hill.\u201d<\/p>\n

She did not purchase a book, and I remember thinking as she walked away, \u201cShe must have at least three or four books in her library.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve met lots of geographical readers since, but none that have been quite as adamant about it as she was. \u00a0And I get it. \u00a0It\u2019s fun to read about familiar places. \u00a0It can be jarring at times as well. \u00a0A corrections officer used to drive \u201cthe chain,\u201d a network of vans used to transport prisoners from one facility to another. \u00a0His trips often took him through southern Arizona and he admitted that, on occasion, while traveling from places in Texas or New Mexico, he\u2019d stop off on High Lonesome Road to let his passengers have a pee break. \u00a0Once he started reading the Joanna Brady books and learned about her living on High Lonesome, he quit longer stopping there.<\/p>\n

And then there was a woman named Bonnie Abney who picked up what she expected to be another Beaumont book only to find herself in Bisbee, Arizona, complete with a scene at Evergreen Cemetery where Bonnie’s beloved fianc\u00e9, Doug Davis, had been buried decades earlier after dying in a firefight in Vietnam. \u00a0That chance encounter between author and reader led to a now decades-old friendship between Bonnie and me. \u00a0For full details on that story, maybe it\u2019s time to read or reread Beaumont # 21, Second Watch<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So, yes, geographical reading can be fun when you encounter one of those \u201cah ha\u201d moments where you find yourself saying, \u201cI\u2019ve been there.\u201d \u00a0Truth be known, being a geographical writer can be fun, too. \u00a0I love putting those little in-crowd touches into my stories, the small details that may only resonate with a few of my readers. \u00a0That\u2019s as true for my Washington-based books as it is for my Arizona-based ones.<\/p>\n

When I\u2019m being introduced in public, the hosts often recount that I\u2019m the author of three different series\u2014the Beaumonts, the Bradys, and the Ali Reynolds books, as well as “five inter-related thrillers\u201d\u2014the books about the Walker Family. \u00a0To my way of thinking the Walker books are every bit as much of a series as the others, but why quibble? \u00a0Besides, I understand why publicists state it that way. \u00a0Life on an Indian reservation in Arizona is far removed from life in New York City, which is why both Tony Hillerman and I were told by early editors, \u201cWhat you really need to do is leave out all that Indian stuff.” \u00a0But it turns out, in Hour of the Hunter, the Indian \u201cstuff\u201d is the whole point.<\/p>\n

When I went to what was then the Papago Reservation as a school librarian in 1968, I had zero knowledge about the people I was about to meet. \u00a0There\u2019s a low-lying pass in the highway as you drive west into Sells, and every time I crossed that pass on the way to school, I had the sense of being an outsider\u2014a sense that came from me, because the Desert People welcomed me and over time became my friends. \u00a0The women I met there, the ones I counted as friends, lived with all kinds of adversities\u2014poverty, physically abusive or cheating husbands, alcoholism, diabetes\u2014and yet they taught me so much. \u00a0Rita Pablo, a basket weaver who worked in the cafeteria at Topawa Elementary, told me about being exiled to a job in California after graduating from boarding school. Her story became Rita Antone\u2019s story in Hour of the Hunter<\/em>. \u00a0Loretta Ramon\u2019s sense of humor still makes me smile. \u00a0In fact I quoted one of her stories verbatim in Sins of the Fathers<\/em>, and she was the one who taught me that every work of art\u2014in beadwork, basketry, or pottery\u2014must have a mistake in it, because only the Great Spirit is perfect. \u00a0Melissa Juan, my first library aide, got beaten up by her husband when she decided to try taking a nighttime college course at the University of Arizona, but she went anyway. When I drove her into town to register for the class, she was still sporting two black eyes, but she registered, took the class, passed, and went on to become one of a class focused on training Indian teachers that was offered offered by Arizona State University.<\/p>\n

I came to love the people, the place, and the lore. \u00a0I came to treasure the Tohono O\u2019odham legends I learned as a storyteller on the reservation, telling 26 stories a week in K-6 classrooms. \u00a0I often wore a bright green dress on storytelling day, and since I\u2019m very tall and the kids were very short, and since I came for no other purpose than to provide fun, the kids called me the Jolly Green Giant. \u00a0One of the storytelling precepts I learned from the Desert People is that the story must end where it begins. \u00a0In other words, lives and stories both have to come full circle.<\/p>\n

So I wrote the Walker Family books as a way of introducing people who would never visit the reservation to the people and traditions I had met there. \u00a0I wanted to make that life come alive for others the same way it had for me.<\/p>\n

The summer after our daughter was born, my husband and I were invited to the wine dance. \u00a0The in question wine is made by fermenting the fruit from the saguaro, producing a beverage with the look and consistency of tomato juice but with the kick of tequila. \u00a0Guests sit around a bonfire in a circle (Yes, it\u2019s summer, but it\u2019s cold in the desert overnight and fires are necessary!) \u00a0The cup is passed from hand to hand, with each person in the circle taking a sip. \u00a0Over time enough wine goes down the hatch until people are sick\u2014enough so that the wine ends up being barfed back to the earth, thus completing the circle. \u00a0Our tender Anglo sensibilities may regard this process as gross, but among the Desert People \u00a0it\u2019s a sacred tradition, not unlike Christians sharing communion.<\/p>\n

On the night of the dance, someone had to stay home with the baby. Guess who was elected? \u00a0As for my husband? \u00a0He went and was absolutely in his element, and from then on\u2014until the day he died a decade later\u2014he rubbed my nose in the fact that he had sat in the circle and I hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Fast forward forty years. I had written four of the five Walker book by the, and Queen of the Night had just been published. That\u2019s when the man in charge of the tribal museum in Topawa asked if I\u2019d come to there to do a signing. \u00a0I agreed, but but I was very nervous about it. \u00a0I felt as though I had treated the people and their beliefs and traditions with respect, but I had no idea how they felt about my work.<\/p>\n

When Bill and I arrived at the event on a blustery March Saturday morning, I was astonished to find all kinds of out of state licenses in the parking lot\u2014vehicles from Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Idaho. \u00a0My Milghan (Anglo) snowbird readers had seen the event posted on the website and had driven a hundred and fifty miles round trip to see what it was all about.<\/p>\n

The event started with the emcee introducing the medicine man who did an invocation in Tohono O\u2019odham. \u00a0I know part of the time he was talking about me because occasionally he used the word \u201clibrarian.\u201d \u00a0Evidently there is no Tohono O\u2019odham word for librarian except \u2026 well \u2026 librarian. \u00a0When the invocation ended, the emcee introduced a group of young people who would be performing a circle dance. \u00a0\u201cPlease don\u2019t take any photos during the circle dance,\u201d the emcee cautioned, \u201cbut when we open it for social dancing, you\u2019re welcome to join the circle.\u201d<\/p>\n

The whole time they were dancing, my mind kept going back to that wine dance I missed back in 1973. \u00a0\u201cYou know, Judy,\u201d I told myself, \u201cyou\u2019ve been griping about this for forty years. \u00a0Isn\u2019t it time you put your money where your mouth is?\u201d \u00a0So when the emcee opened it for social dancing, I stood up to go down and join the circle, and do you know what happened? \u00a0The Desert People who were there gave me a standing ovation. \u00a0As I stepped into the circle and joined hands with the people next to me, my heart was overflowing with joy, and it seemed as though nothing better could possibly happen. \u00a0But then a miracle occurred because something better DID happen. \u00a0Some of the Milghan folks from those out of state cars came down and danced in the circle with me. \u00a0It turns out II really HAD made the Tohono O\u2019odham come alive for them.<\/p>\n

That circle dance was then and still remains the high point of my literary career. \u00a0I can\u2019t think about it without getting goosebumps on my legs.<\/p>\n

So why am I mentioning that story this morning? \u00a0I just heard that for July only, Amazon is offering a Kindle edition of Hour of the Hunter for $2.99, and it occurred to me that maybe that price tag might appeal to a few of my GRs (see above)\u2014the some other readers who limit themselves to one series or another without ever looking at the Walkers. \u00a0I\u2019m hoping to them them into giving those stories a try. \u00a0In Hour of the Hunter<\/em>, they\u2019ll discover a remarkable piece of storytelling, one where the stories and legends of the Desert People\u2014the ones I learned as a storyteller\u2014are woven into the fabric of the book.<\/p>\n

Caution, spoiler alert. \u00a0It\u2019s no accident that the crazed killer in Hour of the Hunte<\/em>r turns out to be a former professor of Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. \u00a0Yup, it\u2019s a tribute, if you will, to the guy who wouldn\u2019t let me into his Creative Writing class back in 1964 because I was a girl. \u00a0Take that, you jerk!<\/p>\n

Which reminds me of something my mother used to say: \u00a0He who laughs last laughs best. \u00a0That Creative Writing professor died before my first book was published in 1985. \u00a0I’m most certainly laughing, and the circle is officially closed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the years I\u2019ve learned to categorize my readers. \u00a0There are DTRs\u2014dead tree readers; ARs\u2014audio readers; IORs\u2014in order readers. \u00a0Today I\u2019m adding another category to the list\u2014GRs\u2014geographical readers, some of whom only read the Seattle books and some who only read the Arizona books. \u00a0The most extreme version of a GR \u00a0 came to light […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-yn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2132,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2131\/revisions\/2132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}