Teresa Miller is the author of "Remnants of Glory," the acclaimed novel set in the early pioneer days of American history. She is also executive director of the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers at Oklahoma State University, and executive producer and host of the public television program "Writing Out Loud." She lives in Tulsa, where she is working on her next novel.
"Family Correspondence" is a multi-generational novel beginning in post-World War II Arkansas. Miller's unique structure is perfect for this thought-provoking examination of the complex relationships between mothers and daughters. Each section begins with a letter that may seem irrelevant on first reading to the story segment that follows. It is only in the ending that the real significance of these letters comes to light.
Between 1950 and 1951, Marie Wallace, a young girl of 15 years, grapples with the impending death of her mother and the infidelity of her father. Marie, like most teens of the era, is a bit naive, yet is mature enough to understand the terrifying events impinging upon her life. Breast cancer is killing her mother, and her father, unable to cope with the illness of his wife, escapes into an affair which he tries to hide from his daughter. Marie's teen years are filled with sadness, rebellion and the attempt of a young girl to make a life for herself in a world beyond her experience. Miller captures the bittersweet relationship of mother and daughter as each strives to come to terms with an unyielding fate.
After her mother's death, Marie's relationship with young Ben Ashbrook, heir to the Cherokee Cross Ranch in Fayetteville, comes into play. Ben is the handsome prince charming of every young girl's dreams. He is also, according to his domineering mother Alice Ashbrook, a manic-depressive.
Nevertheless, Marie marries Ben during her senior year of high school. After the ceremony, Alice Ashbrook makes the announcement that she knows Marie is pregnant. Alice it seems has her ways of finding out just about anything she wants to. It is also noted that the family doctor, Roy Carlile, is a man who doesn't tell his patients all that he should. With this bombshell, the story shifts to a chapter titled, "Chronological Disorder." A most apt title it is, too.
Dr. Roy Carlile of Fayetteville, who also travels to see patients in Siloam Springs, receives hundreds of letters from country people. The folks name their children after him, mail him pictures of themselves at Christmas. He rarely writes back himself. "Letters crossed boundaries into other lives, establishing kinships and time frames of experience he tried to resist, mostly for his profession's sake. At least that's what he told himself."
The story escalates quickly to a generation later. Marie, living in Fayetteville, is now a grown woman with two healthy adult daughters. Through the eyes of Nora, one of Marie's daughters, we come to understand many heretofore unexplained events in Marie's life. Nora is a great character. She's at odds with just about everybody in her life, even her mother, and her sister, Leslie. In truth, Nora is an excellent example of why there should be a story about the "prodigal daughter" as there is about the prodigal son.
Nora accepts the fact that her younger sister, Leslie, is her mother's favorite. Why shouldn't she be? After all, Leslie is herself a mother and in a nice, conventional marriage to a college professor. Nora, is single, absolutely unconventional and only recently she returned to Fayetteville and opened a used book store. Her relationship with her mother is tenuous, full of misunderstandings, and her personal life is a real mess. Yet, Nora loves her mother and longs to find mutual ground on which to build understanding between them. Then, the accident happens. An accident that destroys any possibility of Nora becoming the daughter Marie wanted her to be.
On a drive over a familiar highway, Marie, Dr. Carlile and Mrs. Hastings are involved in a one-car accident. It seems Marie, who was the driver, had lost control of the automobile. Why? The mystery of this accident, for surely it was just an accident, leads to facts totally unexpected.
This is where all the questions you've asked yourself previously, and those not even thought of until now, suddenly rise up and swat you in the face. Miller has skillfully taken you down a primrose path with subtle foreshadowing, bigger than life characterizations, and small letters that appeared to make little sense. Then, quick as lightning, all the secrets of the past and present race out of the darkness into the sunlight. I had more than one "Eureka" moment in the last chapters. Yes, "Family Correspondence" is about the mystique and mystery of motherhood, but it includes so much more about the masks we all wear in the relationships that make up our lives.
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(Jones is a published writer & literary critic)
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