excerpt from:
Chicken Soup
for the Writer’s Soul
So Long Lives This
Pat Gallant
Chicken Soup for the Writer’s SoulLiving image
My mother was a writer. Maybe it’s genetic. I had already been bitten by the writing bug. Once bitten, the itch continues. Only fellow writers can identify the itch, its course, and its cure. Never mind doctors-we need an acceptance to that act of penned love we labored over.
I was sixteen years old when my mother began writing her murder mystery/romance novel. I knew when she got that glazed-over look that she was lost in one of the chapters. Intrigued, I asked to read the chapters as she churned them out. I sat, mesmerized, begging for completion of the novel until finally, two years later, the mystery saw its way to a spellbinding conclusion.
Tragically, my mother got sick and died before being able to submit her manuscript. It was willed to me. I placed it in my closet where it remained, as the years wore on and circumstances changed. After eight years, it was as if an alarm had sounded in the closet: The birth of my son, Graig, pushed me to my mother’s manuscript. The moment my son was placed in my arms, I felt a continuum, a link to my past, present and future that I had never before felt in quite the same way. And at that moment, I ached for my mother-I ached at her losses, for my loss, for her to see my son. With those thoughts, the seed was planted: It was time to reread the book. I knew I’d be facing the pain of reading my mother’s words and emotions, of witnessing lost dreams. It would bring me back, but it was a way I could be close to her again. I took out the manuscript and read all 325 pages in one sitting. I couldn’t put it down. It was as good as I had remembered-no, it was better! I knew I couldn’t leave it in my closet any longer. It was ready for a new home. But time has a way of running away. Another move, the baby, work . . . so, the manuscript was placed in yet another closet.
But I didn’t forget. From time to time, the pages would call out to me. Reminded of the circle of life by having my own child now, I went back to the closet, pulled out the manuscript, had it photocopied and decided to submit it. Everyone I knew in the field discouraged my submitting it. Reason: there could be no second novel, and no editor would buy a murder mystery without the chance for follow-up books. I wasn’t daunted. With a recommendation from my aunt, Bobbie Polin Bayuk, I stuck it in an envelope, said a prayer, and sent it off to Dick Whittemore at Doubleday & Company with a cover letter not mentioning that the author was deceased. I wanted to give it its best shot. Six months passed, and I had forgotten about the submission. After all, everyone had said it didn’t have a chance.
It was in the middle of a hectic day when the doorbell rang. A messenger delivered a letter to me: Doubleday wanted the book! Just like that! Stunned, I ran to my grandparents’ house to let them know a piece of their daughter, my mother, would live on. It was the first time their eyes had lit up (save for the birth of my son), since my mother had died.
Then came the nerve-wracking ordeal of having to tell the editor who accepted the book, Sharon Jarvis, that the author of the book was no longer living. I was afraid my mother would lose her dream once again. Terrified, I called the editor to thank her. “Who are you?” she queried. “An agent?” I didn’t answer, asking only if we could meet and talk in person. Puzzled, she acquiesced, agreeing to a meeting the following day.
My legs were jelly as I entered her office. Before I even sat down, I explained the situation. “I love the book,” she said. “I still want it”.
Living Image by Gladys Selverne Gallant, was published by Doubleday & Company in 1978. I notified everyone possible that my mother had ever known. Fortunately, my grandparents lived to see the work published. It was printed in America, Canada, France, New Zealand and Australia. It also ran as a condensed novel in Cosmopolitan magazine.
My eleventh grade English teacher, Ross Newman, taught us Shakespeare. He made us read, understand and memorize many of Shakespeare’s sonnets. One, Sonnet XVIII, stood out that had driven me to defy all the odds:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
My mother had given both love and life to me and, at last, I was able to give her something in return, something that, perhaps, gives her a touch of immortality.
Pat Gallant