My guest today is Pat Bertram, author of Daughter Am I. What fascinated me from the beginning, about Daughter Am I, was Pat's use of retired gangsters, and the fact they still longed for adventure in the autumn of their lives. In their time, they were men to be reckoned with. Even now, being up in years, their spirit is willing, they have experience and they have taken Mary under their wing. Their sense of loyalty to Mary's Gramps, the need to protect her and help her in her quest.
It cracked me up that Pat had a characters who were in their 80's, failing in health but with such feisty attitudes. Like Happy, who shakes so bad he probably couldn't shoot the broadside of a barn. Not to mention, in their efforts to help, they give Mary a whole new education about life.
I talked to Pat a bit about her story:
Pat, you’ve published three books do you have a favorite?
All of my books have a place in my heart for different reasons.
I entered More Deaths Than One in a contest on Gather.com, and because of it, I made many good friends, one of whom is Sia. A Spark of Heavenly Fire was the novel where I first realized I’d learned how to write. And Daughter Am I is the novel I had the most fun with.
What made Daughter Am I ‘the most fun’?
Oh, gangsters, a quest for the truth, buried treasure, romance -- all of that was great, but the most fun came from creating the characters. I knew from the start there would be seven rogues who accompanied Mary on her quest to discover the truth about her grandparents -- I wanted to play up the idea of Snow White and the seven old fogies.
I have to admit, the idea of Snow White and the seven fogies, cracked me up. I have a fondness for rogues, regardless of their ages. Tell me a little about your ‘old’ rogues.
In the beginning, like Mary, I only saw the characters’ decrepit bodies:
- Gun-toting Happy whose hands shake so badly he can’t aim his weapon
- Vain Lila Lorraine, who can no longer see well enough to apply her make-up properly
- Clownish Spaghetti who lives to play the piano in a bar he once owned
- Ex-wrestler Crunchy who is losing faith in his own ability
- Self-educated con man Teach
- Dying hit man Iron Sam who is on a quest of his own
- Dapper Kid Rags, whose forgery business is being lost to computers
You said ‘in the beginning’ Mary only saw them as old geezers, if you will. When did that change?
As the story progressed, and the truth of the characters came out -- Happy as a wheelman for the mob, Lila Lorraine as a dance-hall girl, Spaghetti’s bar as a mob hangout, Crunchy as muscle for the mob -- I began to see all they lost, and so did Mary.
At one point she says:
- “It’s odd—I never used to be aware of old people as real persons. I’m not stupid. I know they weren’t born old, but it didn’t occur to me that heroes and villains, killers and great lovers could be hidden in those feeble bodies.”
So what made them real to you?
It’s in the dichotomy of the gangsters’ feeble exteriors and their youthful, adventurous inner selves that the characters became real. At first I only had gimmicks. Happy’s morose pronouncements. Kid Rags bowler hat, bow tie, and hip flask. Lila Lorraine’s unconscious patting of her hair. But gradually the characters became more than their gimmicks, and that’s where the fun began.So you have a group of aging former gangsters with the desire to relive their youth?
When you have a story of a young woman and a crew of feisty gangsters in their eighties, you can play on the age theme or you can play on the legal and moral issues. I chose to focus on the legal and moral issues because they seemed to have the most emotional impact.
Tell me about Mary. How does she grow and change in this tale?Mary started out so innocent, wanting only to learn about the grandparents she never knew, but ended up aiding and abetting criminal behavior. What was she supposed to do, though? She couldn’t let Happy carry his revolver around. With his shaky hands, the gun could go off at any moment, so Mary confiscated the gun and concealed the illegal weapon in her handbag. When Lila Lorraine accidentally left her blood pressure medicine behind, Mary unsuccessfully tried to get the drugs by legal means. The elders, determined that their adventure would not be cut short, break into a pharmacy and steal the biggest bottle of the medicine they can find.
- “We used a glass cutter,” Happy said, then added quickly, “but don’t worry -- we didn’t steal the cutter. We bought it at a discount store that’s open until midnight.”
Oh my word, lol! What a gang.
What can you do with such unrepentant rogues? Do what Mary and I did -- strap on your seatbelt and go for the ride of your life.What a fun ride it is, though. Pat, thank you for taking the time to talk with me about creating your fun story. What an adventure you take Mary and your readers on.
DAUGHTER AM I Blurb
- When twenty-five-year-old Mary learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents--grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born--she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead. Along the way she accumulates a crew of feisty octogenarians--former gangsters and friends of her grandfather. She meets and falls in love with Tim Olson, whose grand-father shared a deadly secret with her great-grandfather. Now Mary and Tim must stay one step ahead of the killer who is desperate to dig up that secret."
A delightful treasure-hunting tale of finding one's self in a most unlikely way." -- Publisher's Weekly
- Writers: Do you tend to steer away from age in writing your rogues? At what point do your characters become real to you?
- Readers: What makes a story fun for you to read?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Pat Bertram is a native of Colorado and a lifelong resident. When the traditional publishers stopped publishing her favorite type of book -- character and story driven novels that can't easily be slotted into a genre -- she decided to write her own.
Pat's books, More Deaths Than One, A Spark Of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I are available for order through the Second Wind Website http://www.secondwindpublishing.com/in ebook and paperback forms.
Paperbacks are also available from Amazon and in Kindle format as well.
You can visit Pat on her Website as well as read an excerpt of Daughter Am I.
