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Blogs by Lois Wells Santalo
Fiction and Truth 10/21/2012 12:10:49 PM
Night of the Humpbacked Moon is the story of a women's shelter in transition from its wartime use as a home for stranded Navy Wives to a community-wide facility for women who need it, and of a temporary director struggling to learn in a new field. It is also a murder mystery. I'm very interested in the relationship between fiction and the truth of the author's life. We can't write the whole truth because it involves friends and relatives, and reveals facts these people don't want known. Yet we are always urged to "write what we know." And indeed, I find that the most interesting books are those dealing with everyday realities. So how do we pull that off without revealing too much? How does one disguise a person so that he never recognizes himself and others don't recognize him--or her?
I wrote Night of the Humpbacked Moon based on things that really happened at the Women's Shelter where I worked. I wanted to provide the reader with a true picture. Yet at the time there was no murder, and I needed a murder. By arranging one, I found that I changed the dynamics and the characters took on a life of their own, apart from their counterparts.
I persisted, and tried to make the book both a good mystery story and a true picture of a women's shelter. I hope I have succeeded at both.
