My main character is a bad boy (or is he?)
I thought about how to properly talk about this subject a lot in the past few days. I could be direct and trace my reasons for making Sean McNabb who he is. That's straightforward in the way a journalist does it. That level of directness didn't seem quite right. I needed something else on which to base my thoughts. The best way came to me this morning as I watched a movie.
The movie: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Tom Hanks' portrayal of the lovable Mr. Rogers. The parallels between subject matter of the movie and The Search For Circe are numerous. Before getting into those details, I'll first examine my initial reactions about McNabb.
The first impression could be upsetting to many, particularly women. He's a sexist cad. (More on that later.) That's obvious from the opening paragraph. (That first chapter is available on the Excerpts page of my website chris-the-author.com.) I knew that could present problems in selling my idea. That part of McNabb's character has only a tenuous tie to the subject matter of the Mr. Rogers movie.
A much more pertinent aspect is the theme of death and dying. It's one of the driving forces to my novel. McNabb is often preoccupied about the subject. He makes that one of the reasons he writes. He tells an official at Octagon Publishers that he discusses death because it is a difficult subject for people to face. (Tom Hanks makes a similar observation late in the movie when Lloyd and his family are gathered together by Chris Cooper's bedside.) McNabb says we hear about death all the time. We read stories online or in newspapers, or we watch TV news. We dismiss those stories because they are simply someone else's death. But when someone close to us dies we are torn to the very core of our being.
Why would such subject matter be so important to McNabb? Read the novel in its entirety and it's apparent. It's so important to McNabb that he makes his protagonist, Darrington Circe, face death in chapter after chapter. Circe sees a sign on certain people and learns that those people are going to die soon. How does Circe deal with that truth? He can shrink back or tackle it head on. For obvious reasons, McNabb makes him come face to face with those people in their final days or hours.
Okay, so I have a main character who is a sexist cad and is fixated on death. Yes, I know it's a risky combination, but one we all must face. We prefer to deflect the subject of death until it's so close that we can't avoid it. I face it, and I make the reader face it. One of my enduring memories from college was reading the play Exit the King by Eugene Ionesco. The dying king finally comes to a realization that we should spend part of our lives thinking about our death, even making it a daily routine. Where are the warm and fuzzy feelings that so many readers seek these days, that escapist fare that makes real life more distant and therefore tolerable?
There is one other aspect of McNabb's character on which I must comment. It's his often brutal honesty. That's apparent in that first paragraph of the first chapter. It's only partially pivotal to the entire novel, so I can easily discuss it here. He begins by talking about his own suicidal tendency, but that lapses into a detailed appreciation for the beauty of female breasts. He focuses on the type of breasts he prefers, and ends his reverie by saying that putting those breasts on a 23-year-old woman might be perfection.
Every woman knows the honesty of those statements. I believe every woman who reaches puberty has some instance of a man talking to her chest and ignoring her face. It's likely happened many times. (It happens to a woman named Ommi Martin in her conversation with Circe, and she calls him on it.) McNabb is honest enough to talk about it. It might be uncomfortable for some to read about that, just as it's difficult to read about death and the impact it has on people. I wanted to write a tough novel, so tough subjects are part and parcel of the deal.
The intriguing part for me is to trace the underlying reasons for why McNabb objectifies women and their sexual attributes. Yes, that interest in naked women is woven into most men's DNA, but McNabb takes that to an advanced stage.
Why did I select that extremism and make it the framework for my MC? The reason is simple. I didn't want to create a plastic and predictable character. I wanted to form a man who could be challenging as I create the character arc, the process of a man's actions and results as the novel continues. I won't get into details because you need to read the book to see what I built, and what McNabb builds as he creates Circe. You might also be beginning to understand why I titled this The Search For Circe as if the search is a process (which it most definitely is). An intriguing question: Why do I use the name Circe, which has a link to Greek mythology? It's not accidental.
Here's a reaction that surprised me concerning my worries that making a sexist cad would be detrimental to a female readership. That's not a given.
Yes, the reviewer I got for Kirkus Reviews dismissed McNabb as an egotistic misogynist and racist. (I'll get into that racism charge in a later blog.) There is a differing view about that misogynist side even among true feminists. That was brought home to me while I read part of this novel to a writing group. I talked about McNabb as a sexist cad, and one member of the group who is a MeToo feminist got this odd look on her face. "Hey, I like the guy," she said. That stuck a pin into the balloon of my assumptions, and it should burst yours too.
Read the novel. You can find it on smashwords.com by using the search window at the top of the website's opening page and entering The Search For Circe. Click on my title, and that will take you to a page about my novel. Click on the title on that page and you'll go to a page on which you can buy the novel. It's $5.99, which is a pittance as far as purchasing literary works these days.
Enjoy the journey.
The movie: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Tom Hanks' portrayal of the lovable Mr. Rogers. The parallels between subject matter of the movie and The Search For Circe are numerous. Before getting into those details, I'll first examine my initial reactions about McNabb.
The first impression could be upsetting to many, particularly women. He's a sexist cad. (More on that later.) That's obvious from the opening paragraph. (That first chapter is available on the Excerpts page of my website chris-the-author.com.) I knew that could present problems in selling my idea. That part of McNabb's character has only a tenuous tie to the subject matter of the Mr. Rogers movie.
A much more pertinent aspect is the theme of death and dying. It's one of the driving forces to my novel. McNabb is often preoccupied about the subject. He makes that one of the reasons he writes. He tells an official at Octagon Publishers that he discusses death because it is a difficult subject for people to face. (Tom Hanks makes a similar observation late in the movie when Lloyd and his family are gathered together by Chris Cooper's bedside.) McNabb says we hear about death all the time. We read stories online or in newspapers, or we watch TV news. We dismiss those stories because they are simply someone else's death. But when someone close to us dies we are torn to the very core of our being.
Why would such subject matter be so important to McNabb? Read the novel in its entirety and it's apparent. It's so important to McNabb that he makes his protagonist, Darrington Circe, face death in chapter after chapter. Circe sees a sign on certain people and learns that those people are going to die soon. How does Circe deal with that truth? He can shrink back or tackle it head on. For obvious reasons, McNabb makes him come face to face with those people in their final days or hours.
Okay, so I have a main character who is a sexist cad and is fixated on death. Yes, I know it's a risky combination, but one we all must face. We prefer to deflect the subject of death until it's so close that we can't avoid it. I face it, and I make the reader face it. One of my enduring memories from college was reading the play Exit the King by Eugene Ionesco. The dying king finally comes to a realization that we should spend part of our lives thinking about our death, even making it a daily routine. Where are the warm and fuzzy feelings that so many readers seek these days, that escapist fare that makes real life more distant and therefore tolerable?
There is one other aspect of McNabb's character on which I must comment. It's his often brutal honesty. That's apparent in that first paragraph of the first chapter. It's only partially pivotal to the entire novel, so I can easily discuss it here. He begins by talking about his own suicidal tendency, but that lapses into a detailed appreciation for the beauty of female breasts. He focuses on the type of breasts he prefers, and ends his reverie by saying that putting those breasts on a 23-year-old woman might be perfection.
Every woman knows the honesty of those statements. I believe every woman who reaches puberty has some instance of a man talking to her chest and ignoring her face. It's likely happened many times. (It happens to a woman named Ommi Martin in her conversation with Circe, and she calls him on it.) McNabb is honest enough to talk about it. It might be uncomfortable for some to read about that, just as it's difficult to read about death and the impact it has on people. I wanted to write a tough novel, so tough subjects are part and parcel of the deal.
The intriguing part for me is to trace the underlying reasons for why McNabb objectifies women and their sexual attributes. Yes, that interest in naked women is woven into most men's DNA, but McNabb takes that to an advanced stage.
Why did I select that extremism and make it the framework for my MC? The reason is simple. I didn't want to create a plastic and predictable character. I wanted to form a man who could be challenging as I create the character arc, the process of a man's actions and results as the novel continues. I won't get into details because you need to read the book to see what I built, and what McNabb builds as he creates Circe. You might also be beginning to understand why I titled this The Search For Circe as if the search is a process (which it most definitely is). An intriguing question: Why do I use the name Circe, which has a link to Greek mythology? It's not accidental.
Here's a reaction that surprised me concerning my worries that making a sexist cad would be detrimental to a female readership. That's not a given.
Yes, the reviewer I got for Kirkus Reviews dismissed McNabb as an egotistic misogynist and racist. (I'll get into that racism charge in a later blog.) There is a differing view about that misogynist side even among true feminists. That was brought home to me while I read part of this novel to a writing group. I talked about McNabb as a sexist cad, and one member of the group who is a MeToo feminist got this odd look on her face. "Hey, I like the guy," she said. That stuck a pin into the balloon of my assumptions, and it should burst yours too.
Read the novel. You can find it on smashwords.com by using the search window at the top of the website's opening page and entering The Search For Circe. Click on my title, and that will take you to a page about my novel. Click on the title on that page and you'll go to a page on which you can buy the novel. It's $5.99, which is a pittance as far as purchasing literary works these days.
Enjoy the journey.
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