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****Elizabeth Bell’s NECESSARY SINS is
#64 in the never-ending series called INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION where
the Chris Rice Cooper Blog (CRC)
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are at the end of this piece.
Name of fiction work? And were
there other names you considered that you would like to share with us? Necessary Sins, Book One of the Lazare Family Saga. When an agent
expressed interest in this novel, she wanted the title to sound more literary,
so I tried lots of other names. At the top of that list were The Migration of Souls and The Virtue of Sin. Finally, I went back
to Necessary
Sins. This is a four-book series, and I wanted the titles to “go
together.” They’re all seeming contradictions; the others are Lost
Saints, Native Stranger, and
Sweet
Medicine.
Necessary Sins is actually a theological concept from an Easter hymn
and from the writing of the anchoress and mystic Julian of Norwich. So the
idea comes straight from my research and is explained in the novel.
Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work? And please describe in detail. And can you please include a photo?
After years of writing on MacBooks (laptops),
I invested in an iMac last year. I’m so glad I did. I love the wide screen,
which allows me to toggle between my manuscript and my electronic research
materials. Right now, I’m working on the series covers with my designer. But
the large monitor does conceal the 1850 painting of Charleston, South Carolina,
which is on the wall behind it. Charleston is a major setting for my fiction.
There are dried wisteria racemes to the
right of my computer. An important event happens beneath a wisteria pergola in
Book 3 of the series. I also burn scented candles, including wisteria that are
appropriate to the scene I’m writing. I’ve got a Franklin Mint Wells Fargo
stagecoach because my characters travel by stagecoach across the American West.
My characters also make cornhusk dolls, which I learned how to do at the
National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. If you’ve got a
good eye, you might spot the Tenth Doctor with his sonic screwdriver. I’m a
sci fi fan as well as a historical fiction fan, and Doctor Who has some
spectacular writing.
The paintings above my desk all tie into
my fiction. Left to right: The
Confession (1896) by Frank Dicksee. Noli
Me Tangere (circa 1514), attributed to Titian. The Entombment
of Atala (1808) by Anne-Louis Girodet de
Roussy-Trioson, based on Chateaubriand’s novel Atala. The latter two paintings actually appear in my fiction and
I explain their significance.
Occasionally I would listen to music my
characters would be listening to: Schubert piano sonatas or Cheyenne flute
songs. The Donizetti opera Lucia di
Lammermoor also plays a pivotal role in my story. But those were usually
for specific scenes. For the most part, I find music distracting and prefer to
write in silence. I’ll use a white noise machine to drown out my landlady’s
three barking dogs. I have a sleep disorder, and my “wakemaintenance zone” is in the wee hours of the morning. This means I am most
productive and creative between 10 pm and 4 am. That is, critically, when my
living space is most quiet because the rest of the house is asleep.
Then young Father Joseph meets Tessa Conley, a devout Irish immigrant who shares his passions for music and botany. Joseph must conceal his true feelings as Tessa marries another man—a plantation owner who treats her like property. Acting on their love for each other will ruin Joseph and Tessa in this world and damn them in the next.
Or will it?
At once intimate drama and multigenerational epic, Necessary Sins is the first book in the Lazare Family Saga that transports readers from the West Indies to the Wild West, from Charleston, Paris, and Rome into the depths of the human heart.
The first
Sunday of Advent, Joseph decided to knock at one more door before dusk. “It’s
Father Lazare, the new Priest,” he announced.
“Father! Come
in!”
Joseph took
in the room at a glance. There was little to see. A cracked hearth with books
on the mantle shelf. Two worn trunks that doubled as tables. A frayed blanket
strung up in one corner. Beyond it, he glimpsed a washstand with a battered
basin, pitcher, and dressing mirror. The only adornment was a crucifix, hung
between the two beds. Unless the mold on the walls counted as decoration.
Of course
Miss Conley lived like this. She was poor. But the sight of her beauty in this
ugly little room seemed so incongruous. To call her a pearl among swine would
be uncharitable to her neighbors. Most of the Irish were good, pious
people—and no one should live like this, unless they chose it as a Penance.
But certainly Miss Conley was a rare flower in need of a better bed.
Better SOIL, Joseph corrected. You must see her as Christ would. He would care only for Miss Conley’s
spiritual beauty.
She assisted at Mass every day. As a parishioner, Joseph
had not understood the truth of that phrase, how the faithful in the pews
could “assist” the Priest in his sacrifice. But as the celebrant, when Joseph
knelt before the altar, when he elevated the Host, he felt their prayers
joining his, strengthening them, strengthening him. Especially Miss Conley’s prayers.
She knelt
before him now, and as he blessed her, a ridiculous wish occurred to him: that
this invocation could transform her drab dress into a ball gown, as if she
were Cinderella.
When he’d
finished the blessing, Miss Conley took his hand and kissed him just above his
knuckles for what seemed like an eternity, but must have been a moment. His
reaction to her touch had hardly dulled. Few of Joseph’s other parishioners
greeted him in such an intimate manner, though the practice had been common in
Italy—he had often kissed Priests’ hands himself.
He must say something to discourage Miss Conley without
her suspecting his true reasons. He had asked Father Baker, and there were no
indulgences for kissing a Priest’s hand after his Ordination and first Mass.
“Miss Conley,” Joseph stammered, “I do not know the practice in Ireland, but
in this country, it is customary to kiss a Bishop’s hand only, not a mere
Priest’s.”
She had not let go. “But your hands are also holy. Every
day they hold the precious Body of Our Lord.”
Joseph
sighed. He could hardly explain: When you
kiss me like that, my thoughts are anything but holy. I imagine not Our Lord’s
body but—
Slowly Joseph
realized that Miss Conley’s expression had changed. Still on her knees, she
was squinting up at him quizzically. When Joseph frowned, Miss Conley quickly
lowered her eyes and let go of his hand. “I’m sorry, Father.”
“What is it?”
She bit her
lip and pointed gingerly toward his head. “There’s a…small yellow ball in your
hair.”
Joseph
chuckled, stroked his fingertips below his hat brim, and withdrew a
chinaberry. This explained why Mrs. O’Flaherty had been staring at him out of
the corner of her eyes when she thought he wasn’t looking, and why Frankie
Doyle had been gaping outright. “Thank you.”
Suppressing a
giggle, Miss Conley rose from her knees. “Could I make you some tea, Father?”
Parishioners
were always offering him food and drink—people who could ill afford to spare
it. “No, thank you; I’m quite all right.” Joseph stepped before the hearth and
tossed the berry into the fire.
“Perhaps a
seat, then? I imagine you’ve been on your feet for hours.”
She was
right. “Yes; thank you.”
Miss Conley
offered him the room’s larger chair, which must belong to her brother. As if
she’d read Joseph’s mind again, she added: “Liam is still at the office.” She
frowned. “That lawyer keeps him so late—and pays him so little.”
As Joseph sat
by the fire, he noticed the pincushion, spool of thread, and pair of ladies’
gloves on the table by the window. The gloves were rose silk, finer than
anything Miss Conley herself would wear. “Please don’t stop your own work on
my account.”
“The sunlight
is going, anyway. I should move to the fire.” Even candles must be beyond the
Conleys’ means. She transferred her chair to the hearth across from Joseph,
then gathered her sewing. “I help Liam all I can, but my skills are limited.
And I didn’t realize I’d be competing with—” She broke off and fell silent,
lowering her eyes to her task.
“With
negroes?” Joseph prompted.
Miss Conley
nodded. “We knew there were slaves in South Carolina, of course, but somehow
we’d thought they were all on plantations, that I’d be able to find work
easily in a city… I know that must sound naïve.”
“I’m sure I
harbor just as many misconceptions about Ireland.”
“Perhaps,”
she smiled, glancing up at him. “But most of your ideas are probably accurate.
Many Irish do believe in fairy folk. My own father—who is very
God-fearing—calls me his aisling.”
Joseph held
his hands to the warmth of the fire. “I’m sorry, I don’t recognize the word.”
“You must
understand, Father, I am my parents’ seventh child, but their first daughter.”
Miss Conley concentrated on her stitching as she spoke. “While my mother was
carrying me, both my parents prayed for a girl. My father claims he had a
dream in which a beautiful woman assured him I was coming. Aisling means ‘vision’—she appears to
dreamers and foretells change. My father swears the aisling he saw nineteen years ago looked like I do now.”
Even in the
gathering gloom, Joseph saw a flush in her cheeks—pleasure at her father’s
compliment but embarrassment that she’d just called herself beautiful. It was
nothing less than the truth.
How different
her hair looked by firelight. In full sun, the strands shone like the brass of
his thurible. Now, their color was darker and deeper, like the fragrant myrrh
he burned within. Her halo of braids was looser as well, her long tresses
barely contained, so he could better estimate their full glory. Unbound, they
might cascade to the floor.
He must look
somewhere else. Joseph’s gaze landed on the books lined up along the mantle.
Some were law tomes, but many of the volumes must belong to her. “I know you
share your father’s love of books. You said you have some teaching experience
as well?”
“Oh, yes!”
She stopped stitching. “Do you know of a position?”
“I’m afraid
we can’t pay you very much, but we do need another catechist. I was thinking:
once you become acquainted with the parish’s children and their parents, it
might lead to other things—perhaps a position as a governess.”
“It might.
Thank you, Father.”
He would do
anything to inspire such a smile. “When the weather’s mild, if you can bring
your sewing work with you, you’re welcome to sit in the Biblical garden
afterward. The light must be better.”
“You wouldn’t
mind?”
“On the
contrary.”
Joseph was
both disappointed and grateful when Miss Conley returned her eyes to her
sewing. “I had a letter from my mother this morning. My eldest sister-in-law
has been safely delivered of her tenth child. They named her after Our Lady.”
“I imagine
your parents chose your Christian name to honor Saint Teresa of Ávila?”
Miss Conley
nodded. “I was born on her feast day.”
“Have you
read any of her writings?”
“I have. For
my Confirmation, I asked for an English translation of her Life. It took my father almost a year
to procure it, but finally he did.” She looked up to the last book on the
mantle and smiled.
Joseph read
the spine with its antiquated spelling: The
Flaming Hart, or, The Life of the Gloriovs S. Teresa.
“That copy is
nearly two hundred years old! I cannot understand why, but Saint Teresa seems
to have fallen out of favor.”
“You’ve not
read her other works, then? I think my set is from the seventeenth century as
well.”
“You own the
set?” Miss Conley gasped, abandoning her work on her lap. “Might I see the
other volumes?”
“You may
borrow them, for as long as you like.”
“Oh, thank
you, Father!”
Joseph was
becoming very warm by the fire. He stood and moved to the window.
Though she
remained seated, Miss Conley turned in her chair. “Isn’t Teresa
extraordinary?”
“She
certainly is.” Joseph tried to stare into the alley; he tried to keep himself
detached. He was not successful.
“I realize
I’m prejudiced, but I think she is truly unique. She’s so honest, so human,
even humorous—but also so utterly holy that she leaves me in awe. Her yearning
for union with God is palpable, there on the page. The way she writes about
Christ, as if He is her dearest friend…”
At last Miss
Conley lowered her eyes. “Yet she never forgets His divinity or her
unworthiness.”
“We are all
of us unworthy. But I think she must be precious to Him, too.” Joseph decided
that if he stayed at the window, it was safe to admire her. “There’s a chapel
devoted to Saint Teresa in Rome. In the vault above it is an inscription from
one of her visions, one I don’t think she mentions in her Life. Christ said to her: Nisi
coelum creassem ob te solam crearem.” Joseph waited to see if Miss Conley
understood.
She wrestled
visibly with the Latin, furrowing her brow and catching her lower lip between
her teeth. Finally she shook her head. “Something about creating Heaven…”
“‘If I had
not already created Heaven, I would create it for you alone.’ Teresa insisted
Christ meant that for all of mankind…but He said it to her.”
TWENTY STEPS TO
WRITING GREAT LOVE SCENES
By Karen Weisener
KAREN WEISENER WEBPAGE
http://www.karenwiesner.com.
However, this scene is evidence of a big change I made: I renamed my heroine. In early drafts, Tessa was named Aisling (pronounced ASH-ling). I loved the Irish legend behind the name, and I thought it tied in well with my story. Joseph thinks he knows what he wants from life—to be a good priest—but then he meets this woman who’s his soulmate, and she changes everything. However, when I did more research, I realized Aisling would not have been used as a given name at this time. Because the British Crown controlled Ireland, Irish people had Anglicized names. Furthermore, this woman from a good Catholic family would have been given a saint’s name. So I had to choose an appropriate saint. This conversation is the only remaining vestige of my heroine’s previous name, and now it explains why I named her after Saint Teresa of Ávila (Above Left) instead.
Other works you have published? Necessary Sins is
my first book, although the opening pages were published in the online
literary journal Embark. You can
read them here:
https://embarkliteraryjournal.com/issues/issue-1-july-2017/elizabeth-bell/
https://embarkliteraryjournal.com/issues/issue-1-july-2017/elizabeth-bell/
Anything you would like to add? This family saga has obsessed
me for 26 years, and I am so thrilled to finally launch it into the world!
What took me so long? I was fourteen when I started—I had no idea what I was
doing. I had to learn how to write. This saga covers a multitude of subjects,
and I spent years learning about each of them. Life frequently got in the way.
Research and revision, rinse and repeat, till I got it just right.
After earning her MFA in Creative Writing
at George Mason University, Elizabeth realized she would have to return her
two hundred library books. Instead, she cleverly found a job in the university
library. She works there to this day.
Elizabeth grew up in the shadow of the
Rocky Mountains, which inspired the Western parts of the Lazare Family Saga.
She now lives near the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, and numerous
historic house museums, which she has visited many times in the course of her
research.
Elizabeth was a Finalist for the James
Jones First Novel Fellowship and won Second Place in the Maggie Awards for
Excellence. She is a member of the Historical Novel Society, and she loves
chatting with fellow readers, writers, and history buffs.
amazon.com/author/elizabethbellnovels
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BOOK ONE: THE LOST RACE
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NECESSARY
SINS
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