Saturday, September 15, 2018

Seeing Through Her Eyes: When Your Main Character is "Poor"

A friend who read The Beat on Ruby's Street gave me a unique compliment last year -- and I'm thinking about it now because of a recent New York Times story following a group of people interviewed during the recession. While some have succeeded, others have never been able to regain what they lost.

My friend thanked me for writing positively about someone poor, and making her the heroine of my story. When I heard this, I started thinking about poorer characters I'd read about, whether it's Dickens or a book written yesterday.

I'm not saying these portrayals are bad -- I absolutely love Dickens and there's a ton of books where poor characters are featured that are superb in every way. I think my friend was trying to say that instead of making someone's life miserable because he or she is poor, she found it refreshing that Ruby wasn't ashamed of not having much money -- and no one in her community was, either. Plus, they weren't shamed for it.

I think the Beat Generation was like an advance guard for Baby Boomer hippies who came later. I chose to set my book in the 1950s, when a large majority of Americans were pretty prosperous, because I was interested in the Beats who rebelled against prosperity and property. (In fact, they referred to it as "square," meaning the opposite of cool).

I didn't start writing about the Beats for any special reason. It was just that I liked the idea of an artists' community rebelling against convention, including a house in the suburbs, fancy car, clothes and jewels -- and all the trimmings.

That's why Ruby's family doesn't have a car or TV or much of anything. They focus on art and how they can get by in order to concentrate on creation. Their work may not give them much materially, but they are more interested in conversation, coffee, music, painting, poetry and community than they are in anything else. That's what interests me.

The Beat Generation was not the only group of people to withdraw from conventional society. I think that has happened in almost every generation; sometimes it succeeds, sometimes not. I think what my friend enjoyed in the book was how Ruby and her friends enjoyed life, without having a lot of money. I'm not sure there's a lot of support for that in our society. (Maybe not any)?

But isn't that what we tell our kids? "You don't have to make a lot of money to be happy." Except we model something very different -- working 60 hour weeks, grasping and grabbing every straw, stepping on people right and left to get ahead -- and a lot more.

The difference between what we think of as a good, ethical way to live and what we really do about it is huge. Which is why I wanted to enter Ruby's world and stay there for a little while. And, of course, it's why I want to invite you to do the same.

By the way, I looked for articles about how to raise a child who won't revolve his/her life around money and only found articles about raising rich, successful kids.

So I can't share that with you. Unfortunately.

Young girl: Christina Welsh



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