In 1977 when I began beauty college, we were taught that the ideal face shape was the oval. Every hairstyle was arranged to frame and enhance that standard of perfection.
Fortunately, by the time I graduated from beauty college, stylists Vidal Sassoon, Trevor Sorbie, and Paul Mitchell had broken that mold and were showing the world a new standard of beauty. With them, often a hairstyle would be designed to accentuate the unique features in a face rather than camouflage them. Hallelujah! Variety is the spice of life. There’s nothing wrong with ovals, but diamonds, squares, and hearts are also nice.
When it came time to craft a press release for the novel, I struggled. Pearls My Mother Wore is a story worth telling, but I’m one of the least likely people to have written it. I’m a bit of a square in the world of oval press releases. It would be easier if I had a long list of credentials, literary accomplishments, or endorsements to tout, but I don’t.
To the rescue – Cary Tennis - my friend and the Vidal Sassoon of press release writing. See the handy link to his Salon.com column on my sidebar.
With a sigh of relief (release) because I don’t have to feel like I’m presenting something I’m not, I share with you my press release:
From Illiterate to Published Author
Hairdresser / novelist
Sonoma, CA March, 2010 – I told Terry Sue Harms that I would help her write a press release but I would rather just tell you why I think her novel has merit even though she was illiterate into her 20s and is a hairdresser without an MFA.
Ruth Henrich of Salon.com said that her hairdresser had written a novel and she thought I might be able to help her.
So I met with Terry and copy-edited her novel for her. I corrected spelling and grammar mistakes. I made whole sentences out of run-ons and fragments. I also made one structural suggestion — that she begin the novel where it begins today, with the protagonist returning home after the funeral of her husband and collapsing on the floor.
What I find admirable about this work is its untutored fidelity to internal phenomena, a fidelity that is at times clumsy but is also fierce and unrelenting. There are many ways to express grief, anger and revelation. A writer tutored in an MFA program might create a many-layered, lacquered sheen of grief, anger and revelation. What Terry has done, it seems to me, is make a large, true-to-life, lumbering monster of grief, anger and revelation. The monster has been made crudely but with the great loyalty of an innocent. What Terry seems to have done, and what interests me, is surrender herself to the material of consciousness that arrived unbidden, and she has done her best to be faithful to that.
From a literary aesthetic point of view, there are some “mistakes” in this novel. There are things that you might “wince” at if you are a sophisticated reader. But there is also something I find rare in contemporary fiction, which is the sense of a writer going naked into the war-torn field of her own dreams and traumas and reporting as best she can the truths about herself that she finds there.
So you might find this novel fraught with evidence of a beginner at work. She is indeed a beginner. She was, indeed, illiterate until she was in her 20s.
And I did work with Terry on this book and she did pay me money to work with her on this book. My wife designed this book and Terry did pay her money to do that.
But I am not really being paid to publicize this book. Terry was going to pay me to write a press release but I decided I ought to just say what I think. And this is what I think.
I hope you will take a look at this book and say what you think about it.
And now, I send it out and see what happens. I’ll keep you posted. See you with next Friday’s installment.
I like the novel’s ‘unrelenting fidelity to internal phenomena’ as Cary Tennis states in his press release for Pearls My Mother Wore. I just met Gina Bennett, the poverty-stricken single mother of Mitchell’s past. She came to life with your words and I could feel her unconditional compassion for Kelly. Looking forward to savoring the last third of your novel.
I’m inspired!!
Susan
Thanks Rita. You too have your eyes wide open.
I love Cary Tennis. His eyes are wide open and he reports on every elephant in the room. We should challenge Cary to give us a novel, too.
There’s a ton of stories going untold for fear that some MFA grad will rip it to shreds, because they do that so gleefully. I learned to write doing geography research papers, and dodged English classes on purpose, so I sometimes do feel inadequate. Cary’s Writer’s Getaway helped a bunch. (To those who don’t know: I was Terry’s roommate at Cary’s first Getaway.)
I like this press release. It’s different. It’s honest. It dispenses with all that blah, blah, blah that everyone skims over anyway.
Rita
Let me know what you think about this or anything else that you’d like to contribute.