Peg
There’s something I need to cop to right off the bat. I love crazy mothers.
I’m not sure why. I mean, in my writing, I see certain things pop up over and over again. Independent bookstores, love those, have ‘em in Time Off for Good Behavior and Ex and the Single Girl. Reunion love stories - totally dig them; Maybe Baby, The Comeback Kiss, A Little Ray of Sunshine. I even get thematic in crimes, got me some arson in both The Comeback Kiss and Wish You Were Here.
But crazy mothers? Every damn book. Even in Wish You Were Here, where I thought I’d busted the curve because the heroine’s mother was dead (ha HA!), I realized that I gave Nate’s little girl, Piper, a crazy mother (oh). In Crazy In Love, I almost squeak by on a technicality - Flynn’s got a crazy (and dead) great aunt who haunts her throughout the book. Eh… judges rule…
Crazy mother. So close.
What can I say? Probably nothing that wouldn’t be better said to a therapist.
So, I’m sure it comes as a surprise to no one that when it came time to write in a book about women, community, goddesses, and dogs, I had to have a crazy mother. And I love her. Peg is selfish, thoughtless, inconsiderate, and eccentric. She’s also honest (well, sometimes) and loving (well, she loves deeply, she just expresses it in ways that are most convenient to her) and… oh, hell. I can’t defend her. But I love her. And here are just a few of the reasons why:
p. 8:
“Are you implying that I lied to get free dogsitting out of you?” Peg’s eyes went wide with innocence and a touch of indignation.
“Are you implying there isn’t precedent for that suspicion?” Daisy said.
Peg’s eyes went back to normal and she shrugged. “Fair enough.”
p. 40:
“My mother believes there’s no outfit in the world that can’t be made better by a pillbox hat. No one has seen the top of her head since 1982.”
p. 304:
Peg laughed, then held out her hand to Noah. “I’m Peg, Daisy’s mother. Don’t even try the you-must-be-sisters line; it’ll only embarrass us both.”
Okay, yeah, I know, I wrote those excerpts, but those of you who are writers know there are some characters that write themselves and Peg is one of that rare and glorious breed. As you’ll see by the lack of pictures in this post, I didn’t even have a placeholder for her. At least I don’t think so, I might have given one to Jenny if she asked for a collage or something, but if I did, I never used her. I didn’t need to. Peg walked fully formed onto the page and that is a rare character indeed. It only seems to happen with secondaries, too; for some reason, my main characters always require a big psychic deep dive, but the secondaries just wander in, grab a drink, and start playing. I think it’s because there are no boundaries with secondaries. Main characters need to be likeable, conflicted, and layered. Secondaries can just be whatever they are. They don’t need to grow. They don’t need to learn. They can just be.
And damn, that’s a good time.
So… who’s your favorite secondary character? Doesn’t have to be from Dogs and Goddesses, although that’s fair game, too. I just love hearing about great secondaries. SO much fun.
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I loved Bubba from “Forrest Gump”. It was due to Forrest’s promise to his buddy that he entered a career path that he otherwise would never have taken.
Robinton, from Anne McCaffrey’s “Dragonriders of Pern” series was the voice of reason, eventually meriting his own novel.
Bloom, from Jenny and Bob’s “Don’t Look Down”, because he was written as a compasionate and funny man who just happens to be gay.
Milton, Bowser, and Bailey are great “secondary” characters who just happen to be dogs. They don’t have as much dialogue as the humans, but when they talk they only say the important stuff. “Love you forever” sums up the “I’ll always live inside your heart” feeling way more than “I promise to be with you through thick and thin no matter the outcome even though I have a much shorter lifespan than you do.”
I’m not so much responding to this blog bit as to the book itself.
I loved it. I made the mistake of picking it up during the late news last night (2/4/09) on the innocent assumption that it contained three short stories. I didn’t stop until I finished it.
Now I’m trying to work on just under 4 hours of sleep. You people are evil. Wonderful. But still . . . .
I’m with you Lani - crazy mothers/families are very addictive. Bridget Jones’s mother is a classic Stephanie Plum’s grandma also springs to mind. Mind you all her family are nuts. Part of the charm. I think this is one of the reasons why I’m hooked on Brother’s and Sisters - big, crazy, bitching, drinking family who squabble like a pack of seagulls on the beach but you know would die for each other when it came to the crunch.
And I loved Carpenter in Agnes.
Well, I LOVED Peg. Don’t take offense, but she seemed like she was easy to put on the page, she just sort of owned her part. I play books in my head like movies, which is why I so love dialogue and that first excerpt I staged perfectly in my own little head. I don’t have a character/actual person face for Peg, but I’ve got her expressions fully visualized.
ooo I loved Gwen in Faking It, and Clea is unforgettable. Tom Perrotta gives you some excellent secondaries and Marsha Moyer hits right on with some of ‘em too.
First thought: Jessie from Manhunting. Love Jessie. Love her approach to life, and fritters, and doughnuts.
Second thought: Gytha, the Fen woman who acts as housekeeper for Adelia, the heroine in Ariana Franklin’s novels. She is such a contrast to Adelia, and yet so strong in her own right and also they complement one another.
I love female secondary characters who have power in a more subtle way than the lead.
(-: I feel like I’m committing adultery by squeeing about someone else’s characters here, but since you ask: Lois McMaster Bujold’s stories always have amazing secondary characters. Bel Thorne, the hermaphoditic Dendarii space mercenary has got to be one of my favorites.
It’s hard to choose in Dogs and Goddesses, because there were so many primary characters taking up the stage! I did like Peg (as a character!), and she was very vivid. All of the love interests are really good, too. And the dogs! It feels funny categorizing the dogs and the love interests as secondary characters, but you know, I even felt that Kammani was a secondary. The real struggle was between The Three, and Mina. Kammani did not feel like a villian. She was a victim of fate, trapped in circumstances that were beyond her understanding, and duped by ?????? (spoiler, so I’ll leave that unsaid, but it was brilliant and very now-y.) into re-incarnating.