Characters

My dear friend Allyn stopped by today to loan me the latest novel by a favorite author of ours, Alice Hoffman.  Allyn loved this latest work, specifically saying that the characters have stayed with her, and that what endears a novel to her is falling in love with the characters.  I could not agree more.

Characters.  In the best fiction, they become real.  I just finished reading The Book of Dead Birds by Gayle Brandeis, and her characters are still with me.  Their birth and circumstances are far beyond anything that is "real" to me, but nonetheless, they now live in my head as legitimate acquaintances.  I feel for them, I care for them, I worry about them.  And this lasts far beyond my interaction with them.  In other words, the book is finished, but the characters live on in my head.  Did Daryl and Ava marry?  Did Helen and Anchee stay at Salton Sea?  What happened to Janiece?  At some point, I will have to chase them from my mind, convince myself that they are fiction, not real.  But I will miss them.

I do not like those "What's your favorite . . . " questions.  Or as my friend Wally Lamb would have one of his characters in a short story say, "What's your favorite size monkey wrench?"  But if I had to answer the question, "Who's your favorite literary character?" I most likely would say Atticus Finch, although he would be in fierce competition with his daughter Scout.  And now, as soon as I typed that, I am thinking of other characters I've met and debating with myself if they might be able to unseat Atticus.  As I said, I don't like those kinds of questions.

There are a lot of very real characters in my life, and if I could get off my butt and actually try to write that novel I always think about, they would become my fictional heroes.  They are unique, they are compelling, they are flawed.  In other words, they are very real.  And they deserve to be immortalized in a story, even if no one ever knows their true identity.

My friends should beware.  My friends should hope that I remain too lazy to write a novel.  Because one day, some of my friends might find themselves reading my blockbuster bestselling novel and wondering, "Did she base that character on ME?"  And the answer is yes.  Because I love the characters in my life.