By
Susan Wilson
Guest
Columnist
Oak
Bluffs, MA, USA
On November 12, 2019, my
eleventh novel, The Dog I Loved, was published. This was one of the
more difficult books I’ve written, partly because I got carried away and found
myself in the weeds, so to speak, not only in the number of points of view that
I had inflicted upon myself, but also because the story has some pretty hard
things to write about such as women in prison; physically and emotionally
wounded warriors; PTSD. It also touched upon homelessness 19th
century style and things that go bump in the night. It was the first time, in
my recollection, that I had to ask for a deadline extension. Thankfully, my
beloved editor brought me to my senses, and I peeled away many a page and
character’s far too in-depth-back-story to bring the thing to heel.
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| Susan Wilson |
One of the problems I was
dealing with had more to do with the setting than the plot. For once, I had
chosen an actual place. Typically, I invent New England towns in which to set my
stories—Hawke’s Cove, Cameo Lake, Moose River Junction, Harmony Farms. I have
shied away from locating my books, with some exceptions, in real places because
I don’t want to get the geography, topography, and local customs wrong. It’s
easy to reference a big place, Boston, Providence, Holyoke, or New Bedford, and
it’s relatively easy to pop a character into that kind of setting without
having to bend over backwards to do more than create the idea of it.
This time, however, I’d chosen to set an important part of the story in Gloucester, Massachusetts, specifically in a place called Dogtown. I’d learned about Dogtown and its complicated history from a fellow writer who had done a brief history of the place twenty years ago. This long-abandoned settlement became infamous in the early 19th century for having been home to widows, harlots, and “witches” whose protectors and companions were the dogs they famously kept. It seemed sufficiently sinister and historic to provide a cool setting for a woman suddenly released from prison by a mysterious benefactor and left to oversee the renovation of an antique house. Add the arrival of a mysterious dog and you see why a place called Dogtown was a tempting locale for the crux of the story’s arc.
This time, however, I’d chosen to set an important part of the story in Gloucester, Massachusetts, specifically in a place called Dogtown. I’d learned about Dogtown and its complicated history from a fellow writer who had done a brief history of the place twenty years ago. This long-abandoned settlement became infamous in the early 19th century for having been home to widows, harlots, and “witches” whose protectors and companions were the dogs they famously kept. It seemed sufficiently sinister and historic to provide a cool setting for a woman suddenly released from prison by a mysterious benefactor and left to oversee the renovation of an antique house. Add the arrival of a mysterious dog and you see why a place called Dogtown was a tempting locale for the crux of the story’s arc.
However, the one thing
that I was determined not to do was to pretend I knew everything about
Gloucester and environs. There was a lot I could invent, but at the same time I
didn’t want to get the important things wrong.
By way of explanation, I
live in a place popular as a summer resort. It is so popular that any number of
authors have used it as a setting for their books. Some with more success than
others. Some authors actually live here; most do not. Typically, those who do
not live here manage to get enough of
the details right to be plausible for the reader who does not know the place
intimately.
For instance, the well-known
landmarks and where the boats come in; the salt air and the spectacular scenery.
Others delve so deeply into the minutiae that the story is obscured by the
flaunting of the writer’s newly acquired familiarity with the place. I’ve read
books set on the Vineyard that read more like Waze directions than a novel or
with so many nods to “insider knowledge” you can figure out whom the writer
consulted with for local color. But, for goodness sake, be careful. It may not
matter to the average reader that the author has put an elevator in a one-story
hospital, but it very much matters to the reader who lives in the town with
that one-story hospital. It matters to the local reader that the heroine has
driven to Edgartown by way of Chilmark. And, when you glom onto a bit of local
vernacular, you are not required to use it at every opportunity. Yes, we may,
tongue-in-cheek, occasionally refer to the mainland as America, but chiefly, we
say we’re going off-island.
So, not wanting to get it
wrong (or at least not woefully wrong), I was very careful about how I
described Gloucester, what landmarks I mentioned, and used only one local
expression gleaned from conversations with my local sources—and only once.
On my brief end-of-season
research trip to Gloucester, we made it the focal point of the journey to visit
Dogtown. Pamphlets and websites and, yes, novels, can only suggest the mystery
and, frankly, eeriness of these acres of what is now conservation land. Once
deforested, the trees have grown back, and the remnants of the houses, that
once were home to—mostly—female outliers and their companion canines, are
merely depressions in the ground, marked by numbers.
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| Susan Wilson's beloved Bonnie |
The trails are narrow,
and the walker comes upon the pet project of Roger Babson, the wealthy magnate
who lent his name to Babson College. During the Depression, Babson put
out-of-work stonemasons to work carving mottos on massive boulders: “INDUSTRY,”
“GET A JOB,” “HELP MOTHER.” I’m sure it made more sense when there were fewer
trees, but coming upon these random carved-in-stone slogans is a bit freaky. I
tramp about the woods near home almost every day, but these woods were
different. Maybe it was the power of suggestion, and maybe the time of year,
but it didn’t take a practiced novelist to imagine the sadness and difficulty
of lives lived on the outskirts of town. Of being outcasts. Of having only dogs
to keep you safe from harm. Perfect for my outcast character, my protagonist,
Rosie.
Again, I wanted most of all to be accurate so, as there are no longer houses of any kind in Dogtown, I had to move her to the edge of Dogtown. As we walked through the woods, we could hear the sound of the commuter train; as we left the woods, we heard the fairly unnerving sound of target practice at the local shooting range, sounds and sights I worked into Rosie’s experience. I didn’t think that it was critical to give the exact mileage from her imaginary house on the edge of Dogtown to Gloucester proper, but it was important to acknowledge the rotary that swings the driver toward downtown or away from Gloucester toward Beverly. It was good to have her eat in a restaurant where we’d eaten.
Again, I wanted most of all to be accurate so, as there are no longer houses of any kind in Dogtown, I had to move her to the edge of Dogtown. As we walked through the woods, we could hear the sound of the commuter train; as we left the woods, we heard the fairly unnerving sound of target practice at the local shooting range, sounds and sights I worked into Rosie’s experience. I didn’t think that it was critical to give the exact mileage from her imaginary house on the edge of Dogtown to Gloucester proper, but it was important to acknowledge the rotary that swings the driver toward downtown or away from Gloucester toward Beverly. It was good to have her eat in a restaurant where we’d eaten.
My goal was to express
the essence of the place, to give the
reader in California a taste of this venerable New England fishing port; and,
equally, to respect the local reader’s own sense of place. So, did I get it
right? I don’t know. I will say this, the next book is set back in my imaginary
Harmony Farms. At least there I know where I am.
Link:
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Susan Wilson is a New
York Times bestselling author of eleven novels and a regular contributor to
Stay Thirsty Magazine. Her latest novel, The Dog I Loved, was
published in November 2019.