Guest Post: 10 Most Memorable Moms in New Fiction

A guest post written by Andrea Lochen, author of Imaginary Things (Astor + Blue Editions, 2015)

What better time of year than Mother’s Day to showcase some of the most memorable fictional mothers in some of the best new novels?  From loving, supportive mothers to complex, trailblazing mothers to selfish, vindictive mothers, this list has it all!    

1) The Perfect Son by Barbara Claypole White (Lake Union, July 2015)

Ella Fitzwilliam, the mom in THE PERFECT SON, quit a successful career in jewelry design to be full-time parent, mental health coach, and advocate for her son, Harry, who has a soup of issues that include Tourette syndrome. She has devoted 17 years of her life to his therapy, to educating teachers, to being Harry’s emotional rock and giving him the confidence he needs to be Harry. Thanks to her, Harry is comfortable in his own skin, even when people stare. After Ella has a major heart attack in the opening chapter, her love for Harry tethers her to life. But as she recovers, she discovers the hardest parenting lesson of all: to let go.

2) Rodin’s Lover by Heather Webb (Plume, January 2015)

In RODIN’S LOVER, Camille’s mother, Louise Claudel, is spiteful, jealous, and disapproving of Camille’s pursuit to become a female sculptor in the 1880s. She also shows signs of mental illness. Because of this relationship, Camille struggles with all of her female relationships the rest of her life, and ultimately, to prove to her mother that she’s truly talented. 

3) Imaginary Things by Andrea Lochen (Astor + Blue Editions, April 2015)

In IMAGINARY THINGS, young single mother Anna Jennings has a unique power that most parents only dream of—the ability to see her four-year-old son’s imagination come to life.  But when David’s imaginary friends turn dark and threatening, Anna must learn the rules of this bizarre phenomenon, what his friends truly represent, and how best to protect him.

4) The Magician’s Lie by Greer Macallister (Sourcebooks, January 2015)

In THE MAGICIAN'S LIE, Arden's mother is remarkable both for what she does and what she doesn't do. As a young woman, she bears a child out of wedlock and runs away with her music teacher, never fearing the consequences. But later in life, her nerve fails her—just when her daughter needs her most.

5) Five Days Left by Julie Lawson Timmer (Putnam, 2014)

In FIVE DAYS LEFT, Mara Nichols is, in some ways, a typical mother: she loves her daughter fiercely, thinks about her constantly and goes to great lengths to balance her high-stress legal career with her daughter’s needs. But there are two ways in which Mara isn't typical at all. First, she adopted her daughter from India, making good on a lifelong promise to rescue a baby from the same orphanage where Mara herself lived decades ago. And second, when Mara is diagnosed with a fatal, incurable illness that will render her unable to walk, talk or even feed herself, she has to make the kind of parenting choice none of us wants to consider—would my child be better off if I were no longer alive?

6) House Broken by Sonja Yoerg (Penguin/NAL, January 2015)

In HOUSE BROKEN, Helen Riley has a habit of leaving her grown children to cope with her vodka-fueled disasters. She has her reasons, but they’re buried deep, and stem from secrets too painful to remember and, perhaps, too terrible to forgive.

7) You Were Meant for Me by Yona Zeldis McDonough (Penguin/NAL, 2014)

In YOU WERE MEANT FOR ME, having a baby is the furthest thing from Miranda Berenzweig’s mind.  She’s newly single after a bad break up, and focused on her promotion at work, her friends and getting her life back on track.  Then one frigid March night she finds a newborn infant in a NYC subway and even after taking the baby to the police, can’t get the baby out of her mind.  At the suggestion of the family court judge assigned to the case, Miranda begins adoption proceedings.  But her plans—as well as her hopes and dreams—are derailed when the baby’s biological father surfaces, wanting to claim his child.  The way she handles this unforeseen turn of events is what makes Miranda a truly memorable mother.  

8) The Far End of Happy by Kathryn Craft (Sourcebooks Landmark, May 2015)

In THE FAR END OF HAPPY, Ronnie has hung in there as long as she can during her husband's decline into depression, spending issues, and alcoholism and he will not accept her attempts to get him professional help. She is not a leaver, but can't bear for her sons to witness the further deterioration of the marriage. She determines to divorce—and on the day he has promised to move out, he instead arms himself, holes up inside a building on the property, and stands off against police. When late in the day the police ask Ronnie if she’ll appeal to him one last time over the bullhorn, she must decide: with the stakes so high, will she try one last time to save her husband’s life? Or will her need to protect her sons and her own growing sense of self win out?

9) Your Perfect Life by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke (Washington Square Press, 2014)

In YOUR PERFECT LIFE, long-time friends, Rachel and Casey wake up the morning after their twenty year high school reunion to discover they’ve switched bodies. Casey is single with no children before becoming an instant mom to Rachel’s two teenagers and baby. Despite her lack of experience as a parent, and her often comedic missteps with the baby in particular (think: diaper blow outs and sudden sleep deprivation) Casey’s fresh perspective on her new role helps her connect with each of the children in a very different way than Rachel. And when the oldest, Audrey, is almost date raped at her prom, it is Casey’s strength that she draws from an experience in her own past that ultimately pulls Audrey through. Although it is hard for Rachel to watch her best friend take care of Audrey when she so desperately wants to, she realizes that Casey can help her daughter in a way she can’t. And Casey discovers she might have what it takes to be a mom to her own children someday.

10) The Life List by Lori Nelson Spielman (Bantam, 2013)

Elizabeth Bohlinger, the mother in THE LIFE LIST, is actually deceased. But she still has a big presence in her daughter's life—some may say too big! With heartfelt letters, Elizabeth guides her daughter, Brett, on a journey to complete the life list of wishes Brett made when she was just a teen. Like many mothers, Elizabeth has an uncanny ability to see into her daughter's heart, exposing buried desires Brett has long forgotten.

Andrea Lochen is a University of Michigan MFA graduate. Her first novel, The Repeat Year (Berkley, 2013), won a Hopwood Award for the Novel prior to its publication. She has served as fiction editor of The Madison Review and taught writing at the University of Michigan. She currently teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha, where she was recently awarded UW Colleges Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. Her second novel, Imaginary Things (Astor + Blue Editions, 2015) is recently released and has garnered wonderful praise. With features on Barnes &Noble, Huffington Post, and Brit + Co., her work is being introduced to thousands of new readers.  Andrea currently lives in Madison with her husband and daughter and is at work on her third novel. For more information visit www.andrealochen.com

Stepping off the page: characters on the muse

Yes it's a little risqué but my protagonist, the young composer Marianne Cotton wasn't content to let her life fold up into the pages of Sleep Before Evening, especially with my new novel Black Cow about to be released. Neither was Alexander Wainwright, the great artist protagonist from my pal Mary Martin's Remembrance Trilogy.  So when our two characters somehow or another met up one fine autumn day and had a chat, Mary and I decided not to fight it.  Here's their interchange.  Who knows, they might just meet up again.

Alexander Wainwright entered Central Park near 66^th Street. Ahead of him he could see The Central Park Carousel perfectly still in the late afternoon sun of an autumn weekday.

Seated on a nearby bench was a young girl, music book spread on her knee, staring out into space. Leaning heavily into her book, her concentration seemed solid, a strong contrast to the delicacy of bony shoulders revealed through a filmy top. Thick black hair fell over her face but couldn't conceal the ethereal beauty that held Alexander's gaze.  After a few moments of staring, she looked up and saw him.  
 

Alexander appeared timeless, and his stare natural to Marianne, his artistic appraisal of her and paternal smile reminding her of her now deceased grandfather Erik, a pivotal character in her life. At the very least, she knew this man would be entirely benign. She also sensed he might be wise. Immediately, her thought struck her as odd and yet entirely right. Was it that magical blending of artistic temperament she had always hoped to find in another?

Alexander sat on the bench next to her, though not so close as to cause her discomfort. He saw that she had been composing a symphony of some sort. The notations in her book marched across the page with  authority, although he could see at a glance that she was stuck for inspiration for the next lines. Immediately, he sensed she was intensely dedicated to her art.   

            “You’re a musician?”

            Nodding her head, Marianne leaned towards him, conspiratorially, as if she were confessing something dark. “Of sorts. I'm studying composition at Julliard. And you? You're an artist right?”

            Alexander smiled, “Yes, you recognise me?”

            Laughing and pushing some of her voluminous hair out of her eyes, Marianne said, “No, I'm afraid not. It's the cerulean blue on your fingers.”

            Alexander glanced down at his hands and then smiled slowly at her. “So it is. You know color well. Do you paint as well as compose?” He knew she didn't, even as he asked it. Those long clean fingers didn't belong to a painter, though the artistic touch was evident to him.

            “My mother is a painter. I grew up with paint everywhere. I'd go to take a plate out and there would be paint on it. I'd get a sheet of paper to write on and there'd be a big magenta thumbprint on it. Paint was everywhere.” She laughed. “Painters always leave evidence.”

            “Ah, well I'm Alexander. It's good to meet someone so immersed in the art world – music or painting – there's a similar impetus, don't you think?”

            “Marianne.” She put out a hand and shook his, deliberately aiming for the one with the blue smudge on it. “You're probably right, Alexander. It's all about meaning making of one form or another, I suppose.”

            “The whole notion of the source of creativity; the muse if you will, is one that interests me. I think I’ve spent most of my life searching for her,” he said wistfully.

            She saw that his eyes contained that yearning she thought must be common to all artists of all kinds. Immediately she felt safe in his presence.

“Tell me more about your mother and her artwork. Has she been a big influence on your work?”

            “Yes and no. To a certain extent I deliberately chose not to allow her work to influence me. I moved away from the abstract and visual towards a more analytical and linear medium. Music for me is a little like mathematics – a subject I've always been drawn to. Yes, the outcome is fluid and intuitive, but at its base I feel I'm working with code – though I can hear it; transpose it as I'm working, for me the auditory is a more natural medium than the visual. But that said, she and I, and I suppose this surprised me when I realised it, have been working in parallel striving to say and reach a similar outcome. There's always a struggle though I think, for me and her as well.  The difficult front end of trying to say something you haven't said, that hasn't been said. I'm struggling now with my piece.  It's always at that point that you wonder whether the capability will be able to match the desire.  Do you experience that Alexander?  When did you really accept yourself as an artist? Were you always sure?”

            With  a wry smile, he said, “No, it took a long time and much work. I went to the Slade School of Art in London. I think the life of any artist is extremely challenging. We stumble around in the dark most of the time and, if we’re lucky, we occasionally find something .”

            Marianne nodded her head appreciatively.

            “They can teach you much about technique, but I don’t think they can teach you creativity. That comes from within yourself…nobody else can give it or teach it to you. In fact, most good painters spend their lives chasing after their muse. My whole life I've wondered where inspiration comes from and how to court the muse. Much of the time she can be quite faithless!”

            “Do you listen much to music?”

            “Yes I do— a lot. As you astutely mentioned, all art is expression of what lies inside the creator. My friend Peter Cummings, a very good writer, has often said that he wishes he could structure a novel like a symphony…developing various themes… the rise and fall of passion. Do you think it’s so very different?  Maybe it’s just another language?” Alexander was entranced. He loved to speak with youth. They were so open to ideas and feelings. Not like some artists he knew who were stuck in ruts they had spent their lives digging. Any new thought was seen as a challenge to their hard won authority.

            “No, not really. Not in a formal conscious sense. But something will strike me. It might just be an emotion – a sensation I hold onto for longer than is required in the situation I feel it in. Something that hurts, or excites me, or it might be a sound – a repeated birdsong, a honking car, another song or composition, or even one of my mother's pieces, which goes back to your other question about her influence on me. We sometimes visit galleries together when she comes to see me here – she lives on Long Island where I grew up.”

Marianne winked at him. Surprised, Alexander frowned for just a moment. But he continued to be drawn by the deep intelligence in her voice and luminosity in her face, which he thought he might like to paint one day. 

“How does your music come to you. Do you hear just little bits first. Do you know where it comes from?”

            “These things can often spark something in me, and then I'll start to play with it until something takes form.  But for me, a lot of art comes from some place dark, a point of pain or confusion out of which light can grow.  Do you find that with you work?” 

            Alexander smiled sadly. “Yes…sometimes it’s that way more than others. I think that my images come from a place, I don’t know very much about.” He sighed deeply. “My art comes from deep within. Some places are comfortable, familiar rooms, which I have often visited in dreams and reveries. Others are wonderfully fanciful and enchanting lands. And still others contain the terrifying stuff of nightmares. But all those places have their treasures and must be explored and intimately known if one is to create. Some quality, an essence, within the muse is like a candle flickering in the dark, illuminating everything in those rooms.

            Throughout, Marianne had remained silent, transfixed by the passion with which he delivered his words. When he was done, he suddenly gave an embarrassed shrug.

He asked, “What about you? Do you sometimes forget yourself when you’re creating….go somewhere different?”

            “Yes, not too much at the beginning when it's all work and form and mathematics. But later, when I'm in the 'flow' I will lose myself, and find that I'm gone for a bit.”

            “I’ve heard some musicians say that music is just “in the air” which makes a lot of sense to me You know like the music of the spheres. In my art, I don’t really “hear” it but I do see it as light.”

            “So your work is also motivated by music, just as mine is by art? Or do you think that we pick up on some pre-existing music, art, words, that are already there? And it's our ability to listen and perceive that sets us apart, rather than our ability to create?” 

            Alex drew back from her in surprise. His eyes widened and Marianne could see her grandfather Erik again in the artist.

            “You have the makings of a very fine artist, Marianne. I marvel at such wisdom at your age. But I don’t think it’s just the ability to listen or hear. When an artist goes to his source, wherever it may be, he must do something or make something with the raw materials he or she finds there. That, my dear, is true creativity. At least in my experience.”

            “But Alex, what if you make something from those raw materials and you bring it back to the world…like a gift. And, the world doesn’t want it?”

            Alexander smiled sadly. “My dear, all true artists must deal with that. Just by asking the question, you have proved yourself as a real artist. You see, suppose you create your symphony or a painting and the critics turn up their noses or worse still…tear it to shreds. What do you do then?”

            Lost in thought, Marianne did not answer.

            “You can toss up your hands and say the hell with them and go back to your studio and get to work making what you think they want to see or hear. Then you spend all your time trying to figure out what popular taste happens to be. Why not? Who doesn’t want to be appreciated? But what real artist ever does that? That’s what a hack does. If you’re not true to your muse, she’ll never pay you another visit. Of that you can be sure!”

Marianne sat for long moments considering what Alex had said. At last she said slowly, “I never thought of it quite that way. You mean, a real artist must always follow his own heart…her own muse.”

            Alex nodded enthusiastically. “I think that is true. At least it has been for me.”

Suddenly, Marianne checked her watch. “Oh god, I've got a class in 10 minutes for which I'll be late.

Alex smiled. “You may find your muse in that very class, Marianne.”

Marianne grinned at him. “I did enjoy talking to you very much Mr. Wainwright.”

She winked again, and Alex, smiling, realised that she knew exactly who he was, and had done so all along. This was definitely someone he would be looking to talk to again.

            “Marianne, I’ve have really enjoyed our conversation. Someday, I will be in a concert hall listening to your music. I will be listening to your muse.”

            She smiled a radiant smile as she collected her books and bag. Then she was off to the street past the merry-go-round. She pointed up at the horses frozen in motion. “Someone once called that a Miracle Round. Maybe that’s one place inspiration lies.”

            He waved at her as he watched her hurry from the park. Those, he thought, who did not listen to the wisdom of youth were bound to shrivel up and lose any hope of finding the muse.   

An interview with Kathy Stemke, and a few of her main characters

I’d like to introduce the main characters in each of Kathy Stemke’s books.  Sitting next to me is Shelby from Trouble on Earth Day, next to Shelby is Zachary the super hero from Sh, Sh, Sh Let the Baby Sleep. And finally, next to me is Winnie from Winnie’s War. Welcome to my blog today.

Let’s start with Shelby. When is you book coming out and why should children read it? 

Shelby: Well, my proof will be in Kathy’s hands any day now soooo I would think the book will be on sale by June. I’ve been waiting two and a half years to tell my story. That must be some kind of record. Kurt Wilcken has drawn my beautiful pictures. I don’t mind waiting because I’m Kathy’s favorite character and kids will learn about being a friend while helping the environment. 

Zachery: Wait just a minute Shelby, you’re just a talking squirrel.  I’m a real boy. Kathy likes me the best.

Shelby: NOT! Did you know that my poster, RETHINK, REUSE, RECYCLE won a first place ribbon at school? 

Magdalena: That’s very impressive Shelby. Thank you.

Zachary, tell us about your story.

Zachary: Well, I got this new baby sister, Layla. She has a real loud cry when she wakes up. Being the big brother and all, I had the difficult job of keeping her asleep. All kinds of things happened to wake her up. But, I have a secret weapon. You’ll have to read the book to find out what happens.

That sounds exciting Zachary. I know Kathy is a retired teacher and she always tries to help kids learn. What will they learn from your book?

Zachary: She uses rhymes with consonant blends throughout the story. You know like sh, th, wh, br, and ch. If kids learn the blends that will help them learn to read. Oh, by the way, my illustrator is Jack Foster. He’s really cool and he captured my extreme good looks rather well.

Fantastic! Thank you, Zachary.

Winnie, you’ve been listening and waiting patiently for your turn. You’re in Kathy’s ‘work in progress,’ Winnie’s War. Can you tell us about your story?

Winnie: Yes, certainly. But first I have to clear one thing up. I can assure you all that I am Kathy’s favorite character. In fact, I’m her mother.

Do you mean to tell me that Kathy Stemke is writing a story with her mother as the main character?

Winnie: Yes, Luv. The story starts when I was seventeen in Birkenhead, England during WWII. My younger brother and two sisters were evacuated to keep them safe from the nightly bombing attacks. We never got word where they ended up. I made it my mission to find them. I even joined the Woman’s Land Army thinking I could find them on some farm somewhere.

It must have been difficult for you to endure all the physical and emotional hardships.

Winnie: It was a long hard war but some good did come out of it. I met Kathy’s father, Ralph, and married him. I fell in love with his curly black hair and turquoise eyes. Yes, they were as blue as the sea. And Kathy’s big brother, Joe was born in England too.  That’s an exciting part of my story.

That sounds interesting, Winnie. What age reader do you think should read your book?

Winnie: Kathy calls it a YA historical fiction. If young adults or even old adults read my story, they will learn all about WWII.

Thank you all for visiting today. I’d like to ask my readers to answer the BIG QUESTION. Who do you think is Kathy Stemke’s favorite character Shelby, Zachary or Winnie and why?

Kathy Stemke is a retired teacher with a love for all things creative. She lives in the North Georgia Mountains with her husband, Tony and their dog, Lucy. Tony is a writer too, but they’re still working on Lucy. Kathy and Tony are participating in the A-Z bloggers challenge. They will write a blog to every letter of the alphabet in April. Check it out.

KATHY STEMKE'S WEBSITES:

Kathy’s blog: http://educationtipster.blogspot.com

Tony’s blog: http://gritsandgroceries.blogspot.com

Moving Through all Seven Days link:http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/moving-through-all-seven-days/7386965#

Helium:http://www.helium.com/users/406242.html

Associated Content: http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/237923/Kathy_stemke_dancekam.html

twitter: http://twitter.com/kathystemke 

Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=6147172660&topic=4910#!/kathymarescomatthews.stemke?ref=profile

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/kathy-stemke/13/269/285

Do drop by tomorrow to visit Virginia Grenier, who is featuring author Stephen Tremp.