Inspiration for TOM’S WIFE

Set on that Arkansas farm in 1932, TOM’S WIFE is the story of a love triangle between 19-year-old Annie Huckaby, her hard-working, but abusive husband Tom, and a gentle peddler named Jake Stern.

 

My dad grew up in a community in Arkansas that is still reached by driving seven miles on a dirt road off a two-lane blacktop. He attended a one-room schoolhouse that is still standing and joined the military as soon as he was old enough. Every summer, when I was a kid, we drove 500 miles or so to visit the folks. Except for the long drive, it was fun because they lived like old-time cowboys – no electricity, no plumbing, no milk delivery. My mom took a lot of naps, but I helped my grandmother feed chickens and collect eggs, pick just enough vegetables from the garden for dinner (lunch) or supper, and although I stayed away from the cow, I shook cream into butter in a big mason jar.

One summer when my family was visiting at my grandparents’ farm, a cowboy rode up on a Palomino pony and asked if Grandpa had any horses that needed to be broken. Grandpa had a couple of untamed horses – Dusky and Buck – but he wouldn’t pay for breaking them. That cowboy was the real deal – he wore a big cowboy hat, crusted boots, and spurs – and made his living riding around the country breaking horses.

Given how thrilling I found that cowboy when I was a little girl, as an adult, I asked: I wonder if my grandmother ever fell in love with anyone else? To answer that question, I created the character of Annie Huckaby and started writing a short story and that story kept on going until it turned into the novel, TOM’S WIFE

I created the character of Annie using a 3-step process that I developed while I was teaching classes at the University of Texas Informal Classes and used my memories from the farm to create Annie’s life.

Tom’s character was a composite of men who came over one summer to help my dad built a barn. All of them worked small farms, and some of them worked in the coal mines when they were open. My dad bought the land adjacent to my grandparents’ farm. Everybody in the county was related somehow by blood or marriage, and men came from all over the county to help him build the barn. They cut down pine trees and hauled them five miles to a lumber mill, returning with wood planks. They stopped for an hour for dinner (lunch) and salt pills, then worked until four o’clock. They only had three weeks because my dad was on leave from the military. One of the men was my dad’s second cousin and one of his sons, years later, went to jail for murdering his wife and her lover.

The wives came over to help my grandmother with canning the vegetables she grew in her garden. My grandma returned the favor after the barn was built and she didn’t have to make dinner for the men. While peeling tomatoes with the women, I learned that some men were rough with their wives.

The character of Jake, the peddler, is based on reading Stephen Birmingham’s book, Our Crowd. That book explains how the Jewish banking firms started in NYC by sending their sons into the South as peddlers then loaning out the profits to other immigrating Jews. I chose to use a peddler rather than a roaming cowboy because a peddler would have more reason to interact with the woman of the house.

I chose to set TOM’S WIFE in 1932 for several reasons. First, I was answering a question about a woman living my grandmother’s lifestyle. Although I am aware of families currently living in Arkansas and New Mexico without electricity, I felt it would be more acceptable for urban readers if the story was set in 1930s. Another reason that I set the story that far back in time was to accommodate the idea of a peddler coming to the door. The final reason that I chose 1932 is that I love history. I spent hours in the library researching the costs of things – eggs, clothing, hairbrushes – so that I could keep the story realistic and the reader could enter a world that no longer exists.