My newest release, STRONG ENOUGH, is set in a fictional small town in North Dakota. I gave Masonville a population of about five thousand because that was the size of the town my family and I lived in before we moved to the big city. It was big enough to have services like a veterinary clinic, restaurants and an assortment of shops, but small enough that you knew almost everyone. Sometimes that was a good thing, and sometimes it wasn't.
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You can’t have an embarrassing moment in a small town without someone knowing about it. I can vividly remember a couple of times when I longed for the anonymity of the city. Like for instance, the time when my then four-year-old daughter threw a def-con 4 temper tantrum when we were downtown at the post office picking up the mail. I didn’t think anyone we knew had seen her meltdown, but I was wrong. My husband’s colleague told me her husband had witnessed the whole thing. Wonderful.
Then there was the time my husband was away on business and
I forgot to set my alarm. I woke up in a panic, convinced I had slept in and we
were late for school. I hurried my girls out of bed, got them dressed, threw
some breakfast at them and rushed them to school. When we got to the school,
everything was quiet and there was no one there. And that’s when I realized we
were an hour too early. It was 8am instead of 9am. So, I slinked home in my car,
and we watched cartoons until it was really time to go. Later that morning I
got a call from my daughter’s kindergarten teacher. Apparently, someone had
seen us arrive at the school that first time and she wanted to know if
everything was all right. So embarrassing! I had to tell her everything was
fine and that I was an idiot who couldn’t tell time. I still don’t know who
ratted me out. We didn’t even get out the car. Even your car isn’t anonymous in
a small town!
But small towns aren’t all bad. Not by a long shot. In times
of trouble they can be a cocoon of comfort. When my nephew’s daughter was
diagnosed with cancer, the small town where I grew up and where he and his
family still live, rallied around to support them. People raised money and were
just there for them. My great-niece
is doing fine now. And she still has a whole town looking out for her.
In STRONG ENOUGH, my character Charlotte has a secret from her past she’s so ashamed of that she can’t speak about it to anyone. Living in a small town only makes it worse. She can’t bear to be the object of gossip in her hometown.
Small towns are complex mixes of light and dark, annoying
and comforting. But when the chips are down, a small town will be there for
you.
Check out the Masonville series! In the small town of Masonville, love overcomes hard times.
I've lived in the country so long that even a small town feels squashy to me, but I do love the community of it. This is a great series, Jana!
ReplyDeleteThanks Liz. I actually grew up on a farm fourteen miles from the small town (700 people) where I went to school. I could not wait to leave and moved to the nearest city about two days after graduation. I was not meant to live in the country!
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