Books and Broths

While most of you are returning to work today, I am slowly rising from my bed and trying to find a clear calmness to embrace my very own D-Day, the day I submit my manuscript. I’m listening to Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah (it might seem a bit dramatic but there is method to my magic). Leonard will elevate me to a higher plane. A place where rejection or acceptance, mild criticism or disregard will not dent my writing ambitions.

The synopsis goes a little like this:

The Memory of Music opens in Dublin in January 1916. Through the protagonists eyes my novel relays the political and social events in Ireland 1916 to 1925. It explores the life of Betty Hopkins and how events that were covered up in 1925 affected her daughter and granddaughter. Those secrets are finally uncovered by her great-granddaughter in 2016.
Told in 3 parts, Part 1 & 2 tells the story of Betty Hopkins and her husband Seamus from January to May 1916 to 1925 as events unfolded during Ireland’s wars, and their lives in the aftermath. Part 3 introduces Betty Hopkins grandchildren and great-grandchildren. As secrets churn their way to the surfaces in Betty Hopkins old home, it finally pieces together the past and gives them understanding of the previous generations.
Betty Hopkins is proud, ambitious and clever. While working in her father’s violin shop in rural Ireland she meets Seamus Hopkins, a gifted violin maker. In 1916, equipped with his dreams of freeing Ireland, and her desire to escape the humdrum realities of rural life, they elope to Dublin. Betty is disappointed with Dublin life and her husband, whose priority is Ireland’s freedom. As tensions increase with Ireland’s escalating troubles, Betty finds consolation with her husband’s comrade, Phelim Salmon. With the ensuing Civil War Phelim and Seamus take opposing sides. Betty and Phelim exchange a series of letters which identify the roles they played in Seamus’ demise. Their correspondence remains hidden for almost 100 years.
Betty’s daughter Isabel is born during the 1916 rising. As she is dying she recalls fragments of her life from a hospital bed. Through her recollections we are given another view point. The events from the period defined the woman she became which impacted her relationships with her children.
Eilish is Isabel’s granddaughter from Dublin. She is clawing her way out of bankruptcy by trying to re-establishing the company her great-grandfather founded almost 100 years previously. While living in her great-grandmother’s home she uncovers the letters exchanged between Betty and Phelim 90 years previously. As the surprises are revealed, it finally allows the women a greater understanding of the true events that shaped Isabel’s life and in turn their own lives.

Leonard Cohen is now singing, Dance Me, there is a reckless gaiety to the tune that signifies the end, the end of exploring a Ireland’s history that needled me until I wrote this book. If I am disregarded or receive a litany of rejections, at the very least I understand how our grandparents and great-grandparents lived through Ireland’s turbulent beginnings and many wars. After writing 104,000 words, I finally understand the fragments of their past that shape our present.

Tags: d-day, Irish historical fiction, Loenard Cohen, manuscript, novel, submit manuscript, writers d-day