Mother Knot intertwines the stories of two women: a teenage girl, abandoned by the free love, psychedelic sixties and desperate to navigate the shoals of shame after a narrowly legal abortion, finds redemption in the secret of her lost grandmother’s life during the roaring twenties, disentangling a dark family legacy into brighter strands of grace and grit.
This book has been years in the making, with many titles. At last count I have written eight drafts and have had as many titles. I have worked extensively with a couple of excellent editors and also received help from my writing groups. Now that it is ready to find its way into the world, I have published here a couple of excerpts which are linked below. The photo above shows the revision notebook I used a couple of titles ago, with color-coded sticky tabs to guide me through the process. I have written about the creative process in an essay called The Flow and The Forge. This photo shows the forge.
My thoughts on publishing this story are mixed. In today’s contentious cultural climate, writing anything at all about abortion is going to be a lightning rod, just as the subjects of unmarried pregnancies used to be, when writing about women who were not married but having sex was considered scandalous.
But I have gone ahead touched the “Publish” button on my excerpts. They tell only a little of my stories, but I hope when they go into the world they may be of use to someone else who has been shushed into silence.
To read excerpts from Mother Knot, click the links below