When I started to write Enemies of Doves, there was never any question where I wanted it set—East Texas, specifically a tiny town named Carthage and its neighbor, Longview.
When I was young, my grandpa’s job transferred him to Carthage. Just a day’s drive away, but to a broken-hearted five year old, 550 miles away might as well have been the moon.
The silver lining to this move was a new vacation destination. Carthage quickly became the stage for some of my best childhood memories.
I think there is a special kind of nostalgia tied to places from our childhood. Though my grandparents moved from East Texas when I was sixteen, I can still remember some details of the area so vividly.
When I think of Carthage, I remember my grandmother’s coconut pies, the friendly smiles of strangers, brutal humidity, and lots of green. Green was something I wasn’t accustomed to seeing growing up in the desert of New Mexico. I recall taking walks down paths lined with trees so tall, I swore I was in the middle of an actual fairy tale. I remember a staggering blue house that my family loved. We always talked about buying it and what we would use the rooms for. In 1996, it was actually for sale for $60,000. Oh to have a time machine.
We also took small trips out of Carthage. One was to Longview, Texas. The highlight of which was always the carousel located inside the mall there. Another perk for the area for me was that Longview was the hometown of one of my favorite country singers of the time, Ricky Lynn Gregg. I believe there was a motor company there owned by his family that we would drive by like an Elvis fan might visit Graceland. We also frequented a drive through zoo somewhere in the East Texas area and took the occasional trip to Shreveport to visit a small amusement park.
I looked at some old pictures and called on many of these memories while writing the 1991 sections of my book. My grandparent’s neighbors had a swimming pool they allowed us to claim as our own when we visited. During one late-night swim, a bat kept swooping down. So when writing the scene with Garrison and Molly in the swimming pool, I decided that same bat should pay them a visit too.
While my cousins and I watched tv in the living room, my parents, aunt, uncle, and grandparents would play a game called “Loony Rummy” at the kitchen table. As my cousins and I grew, they taught us to play. My grandpa, like Clancy, always held aces. I clearly recall him picking one up from the discard pile and saying, “Oh hell. I’ll take those sons a bitches.” That was a line I just had to borrow.
Even with 1991 covered, there was still another timeline to consider. What did East Texas look like in 1941?
While I was able to use some online resources, most of my information came from a book called Longview (Postcard history), by Van Craddock. After I read it, I went to the library and made copies of many pictures that captured Longview as it was once upon a time. I put those pictures in a notebook that I looked at just about every time I sat to write a scene from the 1940s. Lake Lamond was an especially inspirational location for me.
When I started writing Enemies of Doves, my grandparents lived in Sweetwater, Texas. We visited often. Grandma still made her coconut pies and we all still sat around the table to play Loony Rummy. Grandma was a first reader and editor of Enemies of Doves. She read it several times, giving me pages and pages of feedback.
When Enemies of Doves released, my grandfather had been gone just over a year and my grandma was struggling with dementia. So much so, she had completely forgotten the plot of the book she played such a part in. There was such a sad irony that I wrote Garrison’s grandmother to have dementia, only for my life to imitate what was once just a plot point. On my last round of edits with my editor, I went on Google Maps and clicked the arrows that allowed me to journey down my grandparent’s old street in Carthage once again. It was definitely a more emotional experience than I anticipated. The street was so familiar, despite everything in my life being so very different.
We all know that setting is time and place, but it was more to me when I was writing my book— it was a memory. It was events I wanted to experience anew and feelings I wanted to revisit. One day writing I caught myself thinking, “Garrison and Molly are in Carthage, Summer 1991 and I’m there too.” I laughed to myself because obviously, they aren’t real people, but I guess I really was there, on every page, in every scene.
It may very well be true that there is no place like home, but if I could click my heels together three times tonight, I might travel back to one of those muggy 1991 summer days in East Texas.
If I close my eyes, I’m sitting on my grandparent’s back porch, listening to the whir of the fan and the occasional demise of an insect as it flies too close to the bug zapper. I can smell the scent of grandma’s coconut pies mingling with the coconut sunscreen I’ve slathered on. Through the open window, I hear my grandpa cuss as he counts up those aces he got caught with. Everyone I love most is on the other side of that screen door, and everything in the world is just as it should be. And in my childish innocence, I can never imagine that it won’t always be.
Turns out my dream house isn’t that big blue mansion after all.
.
Shanessa Gluhm 