Writing Truth (con't)
Adams always wanted to write a book. “I must’ve started a hundred since grade school,” she recalls. “But I never finished them.” Strawberry Wine was different, though. It wasn’t just for her; it was for all the donors after her, and, Adams admits, “The characters wanted me to finish it.”
With her background in donation, Adams’ characters naturally exude authenticity. “You can’t understand what it’s like to be a living donor until you’ve been one,” she explains. Still, some authors try their hand at it, producing unrealistic plotlines, while Adams shows us that “there’s plenty of real drama involved.” Living donors face many emotional and physical hardships. They’re not just sacrificing an organ; they’re living with the fear that they may not be a match, that their decision could cause riffs in the family, or that, after everything, the transplant might not work at all.
Although Adams’ personal donation experience was with an adult recipient, she had no trouble embodying the emotions of her main character, Tanya, who underwent testing for her young, adopted daughter, Tanny. She considered the way she would have reacted were it her own niece or nephew needing the donation. “You ask fewer questions,” she says. “You don’t look back and you don’t question the decision.” Her feelings were firm on this. “We’ve got to take care of the children of this world.”
But the first half of Strawberry Wine isn’t focused on the intricacies of kidney donation. Tanya is depicted in her late teens, during the summer before her senior year of high school. This last summer at Laurel Lake—a setting inspired by Adams’ own trips to this Lake as a child—is full of shenanigans, young love, and misplaced affections, but culminates in an event that is sure to haunt Tanya and her friends for the rest of their lives.
Tanya may appear to radiate self-assurance in the novel, but that doesn’t make her any less affected by her teen years. According to Adams, “The decisions we make as teenagers can affect our entire lives,” but it’s how Tanya and the gang deal with these decisions that showcases one of the book’s main themes. “People are inherently good,” she claims, believing there comes a time when you have to let go of the past.
Another key undertone in Strawberry Wine is faith. A risky move to some considering the controversial nature of the subject, but Adams doesn’t apologize for including the topic. “Percentage-wise,” she says, “a vast majority of people have some kind of faith, and rely on it in hard times.” Excluding it from her novel, she says, would have been untrue to herself.
But the core message—what Adams primarily wants readers to take away—is the significance of forgiveness. Tanya exemplifies the consequences of ignoring this counsel. Her heart, broken as a teen, is still unhealed in early adulthood, and will remain that way until she confronts her feelings and learns to forgive. “People make mistakes that aren’t always intended to hurt someone else,” Adams reminds us—a lesson she learned while working as vice president of national promotion for Broken Bow Records, a music industry job she shares with Tanya. It’s difficult to let go of the past. Adams knows this, but she’s learned to heed her own advice and forgive.
For Adams, writing Strawberry Wine was oddly similar to the Forest Gump scene where Forest just kept on running. She just kept on writing, running the writer’s marathon, crafting a story that intermingled youth and maturity, united past and present, and professed something she felt had gone unprofessed for too long. There was no looking back and no slowing down, not until that unmarked finish line. Typical research was unnecessary in her case because she had lived the realities, and the book is more candid because of it.
Tanya and her friends deal with love, betrayal, abuse and disease in Strawberry Wine, and discover that the only way to overcome these trials is to have faith and forgive. “I think that I grew through the characters’ growth,” Adams says. She admires her characters for setting aside their bitterness to save a child. Living donation can change lives, and Adams is a testament to this truth. “It will probably be a part of all my writing from now on.”
Strawberry Wine (paperback with color cover, 220 pages) is available from amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, fine booksellers
and from belleislebooks.com. $15.95 plus shipping/handling.
_______________________
Taylor Denecke is a student at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
With her background in donation, Adams’ characters naturally exude authenticity. “You can’t understand what it’s like to be a living donor until you’ve been one,” she explains. Still, some authors try their hand at it, producing unrealistic plotlines, while Adams shows us that “there’s plenty of real drama involved.” Living donors face many emotional and physical hardships. They’re not just sacrificing an organ; they’re living with the fear that they may not be a match, that their decision could cause riffs in the family, or that, after everything, the transplant might not work at all.
Although Adams’ personal donation experience was with an adult recipient, she had no trouble embodying the emotions of her main character, Tanya, who underwent testing for her young, adopted daughter, Tanny. She considered the way she would have reacted were it her own niece or nephew needing the donation. “You ask fewer questions,” she says. “You don’t look back and you don’t question the decision.” Her feelings were firm on this. “We’ve got to take care of the children of this world.”
But the first half of Strawberry Wine isn’t focused on the intricacies of kidney donation. Tanya is depicted in her late teens, during the summer before her senior year of high school. This last summer at Laurel Lake—a setting inspired by Adams’ own trips to this Lake as a child—is full of shenanigans, young love, and misplaced affections, but culminates in an event that is sure to haunt Tanya and her friends for the rest of their lives.
Tanya may appear to radiate self-assurance in the novel, but that doesn’t make her any less affected by her teen years. According to Adams, “The decisions we make as teenagers can affect our entire lives,” but it’s how Tanya and the gang deal with these decisions that showcases one of the book’s main themes. “People are inherently good,” she claims, believing there comes a time when you have to let go of the past.
Another key undertone in Strawberry Wine is faith. A risky move to some considering the controversial nature of the subject, but Adams doesn’t apologize for including the topic. “Percentage-wise,” she says, “a vast majority of people have some kind of faith, and rely on it in hard times.” Excluding it from her novel, she says, would have been untrue to herself.
But the core message—what Adams primarily wants readers to take away—is the significance of forgiveness. Tanya exemplifies the consequences of ignoring this counsel. Her heart, broken as a teen, is still unhealed in early adulthood, and will remain that way until she confronts her feelings and learns to forgive. “People make mistakes that aren’t always intended to hurt someone else,” Adams reminds us—a lesson she learned while working as vice president of national promotion for Broken Bow Records, a music industry job she shares with Tanya. It’s difficult to let go of the past. Adams knows this, but she’s learned to heed her own advice and forgive.
For Adams, writing Strawberry Wine was oddly similar to the Forest Gump scene where Forest just kept on running. She just kept on writing, running the writer’s marathon, crafting a story that intermingled youth and maturity, united past and present, and professed something she felt had gone unprofessed for too long. There was no looking back and no slowing down, not until that unmarked finish line. Typical research was unnecessary in her case because she had lived the realities, and the book is more candid because of it.
Tanya and her friends deal with love, betrayal, abuse and disease in Strawberry Wine, and discover that the only way to overcome these trials is to have faith and forgive. “I think that I grew through the characters’ growth,” Adams says. She admires her characters for setting aside their bitterness to save a child. Living donation can change lives, and Adams is a testament to this truth. “It will probably be a part of all my writing from now on.”
Strawberry Wine (paperback with color cover, 220 pages) is available from amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, fine booksellers
and from belleislebooks.com. $15.95 plus shipping/handling.
_______________________
Taylor Denecke is a student at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.