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blogging, daughters, expats, guest blog, humor, Linda Huber, mothers
Coffee with Barb and Linda Huber
A friend—who I’ve never actually met—asked if I ever get homesick for the States. I was surprised to realize that the answer to that is no. Sure, as an American expat in Scotland, there are certain cultural advantages I miss (decent Tex-Mex food, right turn on red, Sunday New York Times, etc.) but thanks to my blog, my friends are already scattered all over the world. So far this year, people have visited from 139 countries (love that Stats page, WordPress!).
And the best part? Sometimes when the stars align, I get to meet them in person. This was one of those weeks. One of my favorite writers, Linda Huber, was in Glasgow and we sat down for actual coffee. After deep philosophical discussion (of what each of our kids was doing), we talked about her books (which I’ve reviewed here and here and most recently here!), and what I see as one common theme—mothers and their daughters.
So please pour yourself a cup, pull up a chair, and get comfortable. Welcome Linda!
Linda Huber: Mothers and Daughters
Thanks for the coffee invite, Barb, and the chance to talk about the mums and their girls in The Attic Room. Can I just say first what a pleasure it is to be drinking coffee in my old hometown? Nothing like a cup of Glasgow coffee – let’s have it in a lovely old Glasgow tenement and ‘hae a hingie oot the windae’ while we have a good old gossip.
Mothers and daughters… They’re everywhere you look. We all know dozens of them. Every daughter has a mother, but not all daughters are mothers of girls. And now we’ve established that, let’s think about mums and daughters in books.
Pride and Prejudice comes to mind – Elizabeth, Jane and their sisters had a lot to put up with; Mrs Bennet was one of the more embarrassing parents. If the story was set today she’d be the kind of mother who’d appear in a nightclub wearing clothes 35 years too young for her and flirt with her daughters’ boyfriends.
Marmee in Little Women, on the other hand, is so perfect she doesn’t seem real. Fortunately for the story, her girls make up for this, even when they too become mothers.
(And while we’re talking mothers in fiction, who will ever forget the death of Bambi’s mother? Okay, Bambi isn’t exactly a girl, but the emotion of that scene has traumatised generations of daughters (and sons) who are now parents themselves…)
Then there’s the nonfiction mums and daughters – Simone de Beauvoir describes her mother’s last illness and their difficult relationship in her wise and honest book A Very Easy Death. Highly recommended. And you can buy any number of books about how to improve your own mother-daughter relationship. It seems to be a complicated business.
The Attic Room is my third book where the main character (Nina in this story) is mother of a daughter, but my first where she is also daughter of a mother. The bond between Nina and her mother Claire was my main focus writing this one. Claire dies before the story opens, but the reader gets her point of view in flashback chapters. Shortly after the story opens, Nina discovers that Claire has lied to her, all her life, about something very important (no spoilers here!), and this makes her question the entire relationship. As Nina doesn’t have the advantage of being able to read Claire’s point of view in flashback chapters, she’s in the dark about why her mother lied, which makes her cling even more to her own girl, Naomi. Toss in a Scottish island, a couple of bad guys, and a spooky old house in Bedford, and that’s the plot of The Attic Room.
Building characters is tremendous fun. One of the best tips I know is to note down, before you start writing, ten things about each main character that the reader never finds out. So I can tell you that Nina likes Queen, is afraid of spiders, and makes fantastic curry. (Most people who were part of student life in Glasgow make great curry.) The better you know your characters, the more realistically they react to the problems you hardheartedly put in their way. And in thrillers, you need that realism to make the book good and scary…
My next mother and daughter duo? It’s one with a difference. Watch this space! (Or even better watch the space on my own blog…)
How about you? Who is your favorite Mother/Daughter duet?
For more info about Linda Huber and her books:
Blog: www.lindahuber.net
Cathy said:
Great post, ladies. That Bambi scene gets me even now! It doesn’t take much to set me off 😉 I think I’ll have to add Linda’s other two books to my list as well.
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barbtaub said:
I know! When I first saw it as a child, I couldn’t figure out where Bambi’s mother went. For years, I thought she was just lost, and maybe would turn up sooner or later. So for me, the scene always resonated with that time I wandered off in Golden Gate Park and for about a half hour (that I remembered as lasting for at least a year) I couldn’t find my mother.
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Cathy said:
Oh, what a horribly scary experience for a child…and, of course, the parent.
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barbtaub said:
Well…there were ten of us, so that situation tended to repeat. I was an adult before I realized that every parent and child didn’t have the “And if you get left behind at a freeway rest stop, what should you do?” discussion.
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Cathy said:
Yes, that’s a lot of children to keep track of. I always wished I was part of a big family, there’s only two of us.
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Georgia Rose said:
Ahh… the mother/daughter relationship – fraught with difficulty at times and wonderful at others! I’m with you Barb on the fate of Bambi’s mother – I had no idea she’d died as a child – then years later watching it with my own children suddenly realised 😦 Anyway fab post and I’m so pleased you two got to meet up for coffee – I love it when the online relationships morph into reality! I’ve loved the first two of Linda’s books and have The Attic Room waiting for me and I’m really looking forward to it – sounds terrific 🙂
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barbtaub said:
I’m not surprised that you like Linda’s books. You both write thrillers that—despite being action packed—are ultimately more about the psychological. And that have lots of layers. Have fun reading The Attic Room!
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Paul said:
Pleasure meeting you Linda. Barb is a marvelous hostess and it is great to meet authors in person (in writing). My favorite Mother/daughter team is Stephanie Plum and her Mum and her Grandma Mazur. These characters were the creation of Janet Evanovich and are fun if not very literary.
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barbtaub said:
I LOVE Grandma Mazur!
“I went to the beauty salon today and got spruced up,” Grandma said. “Ever since Mildred Frick called me a slut my phone hasn’t stopped ringing. I got two dates for the weekend.”
“It might not be such a good thing to have men calling you because they think you’re a slut,” I said. “They’re only going to be after one thing.”
“I hope that’s true. I don’t want to find out I went blond and bought all them thongs for nothing.”
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Paul said:
Ha! I’m impressed, I wasn’t sure you would have read any of Evanovich’s stuff. Grandma is hilarious – going to the funeral home looking for dates. And accidentally shooting the turkey with Stephanie’s gun – Ha!
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Paul said:
As an aside Barb, I did a coffee post over at Mark Bialczak’s http://markbialczak.com/2015/09/20/virgin-territory-the-beginning/ this morning. If you have a chance, I’d be honored if you could drop by for a read.
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barbtaub said:
Paul– Just popped over to Mark’s blog and I loved your TERRIFIC post on your life on the roads. You have such a gift for making your experiences come alive.
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Paul said:
Thank you so very much Barb! I am honored. BOWS in Respect
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barbtaub said:
I read several of the Plums and a few of the collaborations. Great stuff!
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Mary Smith said:
Great post. The Attic Room sounded so good I’ve looked back at your reviews of Linda’s other books. The Cold Cold Sea is a must – love the cover with the beach huts! The Paradise Trees sounds good, too, but not bedtime reading for me as it would surely keep me awake.
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barbtaub said:
Paradise Trees was the most difficult read for me in places because Linda is scary-good at getting into the head of the killer. But a great story even so!
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Trinity Tumlinson said:
Oh dear. Bambi. Well you were bound to hear about this at some point. When I was very young there were still theaters that played matinees specifically for children. I would like to point out before I go any farther that I was, in fact, the good child. I was generally well behaved and even polite. Ok, now that we have covered that; I was also insanely sensitive and disturbingly literal. I also grew up around hunters. So my mom took me to see Bambi, I was at most four. I was having a great time until “ca-rack” Bambi’s mother collapses. Little four year old me lost my composure big time. I stood up on my chair and tried to argue with the screen at my very top volume. “THAT ISN’T RIGHT, MOMMIES ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DIE!” That is about all I got out before my mom scooped me up and took me to the lobby. We did breathing exercises to calm me down, because I was crying/shaking.
My mom said, “Alright, this wasn’t a good choice of movie for you. I am not angry about the empathy you were showing towards bambi and since this is a completely new behavior that has never been covered you are not in trouble. This time.” Then she got really close to my ear and growled “However, if you ever act like that in public ever again I will blister your ass.”
Mom didn’t take me to another movie until Oliver Stone’s The Doors, and I never ever had a loud public outburst ever again. Good times.
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barbtaub said:
Your mom rocks, of course. But I think you’re overdue a messy and satisfying public outburst or two. Have at it!
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glasgowdragonfly said:
Great interview ladies. Loved Linda’s tip about character trait development. Can highly recommend Linda’s first two releases & am looking forward to reading the Attic Room very soon.
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barbtaub said:
I have a character dev worksheet that I fill out very faithfully every time I start a new book. Then I completely forget about it. Sometimes, for laughs, I go back and look at it again. If I can figure out who is who, after all the times I’ve changed their names…
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R.R. Wolfgang said:
Wonderful post, and I love that Bambi reference is in there! That scene traumatized my 4-year-old self the first time I watched it. Of course, I also remember so many sweet scenes with Thumper, so I’m torn about whether I’ll watch it with my own daughter. Although, she’s seen frozen dozens of times, and both parents drown in that, so…?
I’m going to have to check out Laura Huber’s books, so thank you for sharing!
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barbtaub said:
You were a LOT more with-it at four than I was. I seriously had no idea they killed Bambi’s mom. Even now, I want to cry…
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R.R. Wolfgang said:
I don’t know if I was astute, but I remember gasping, and turning to my babysitter and saying, “What happened?!” And they didn’t pull any punches. 😛 Every time I watched it afterwards, I would ask my mom to fastforward past that scene… Such a sad movie!
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lindahuber said:
Thanks so much everyone for the kind comments and I’m sorry if I’ve ruined anyone’s Sunday with the Bambi clip – I remember being rooted to my seat in the Lyceum in Govan (no longer there) when Bambi’s mother died…
And thank you Barb for the coffee and scone and for being in my old home town – you made my Friday! 🙂
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barbtaub said:
It was so much fun to meet you at last!
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judithbarrow1 said:
Reblogged this on Barrow Blogs: .
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barbtaub said:
Thanks, Judith! I really appreciate the reblog.
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Catherine Hokin said:
Good post – I always loathed Marmie she was so martyred. Maybe there’s a post to be had on which mothers should follow in Bambi’s mum’s footsteps, a kind of ‘Bambi Dearest’…
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barbtaub said:
And even though she’s written and played for laughs, I’ve always kind of identified with Mrs. Bennett. She was part of a society that restricted women of her class from doing almost everything, her husband was emotionally unavailable, and improvident enough in his financial dealings that she and her children faced real danger of a grim future. The only safety she could see for her daughters was through marriage—no wonder that was her obsession.
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barbtaub said:
Okay, so I’m still thinking about your suggestion. Which literary mums could their offspring do without? I mean, there are the obvious ones like Hamlet’s mom Gertrude and of course Medea… I’m realizing that literary mothers are actually kind of thin on the ground. Most are basically, dead. Apparently, being a mother in a work of literature isn’t conducive to a long and happy life.
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lindahuber said:
And look what happens when there are no mothers around, like in Lord of the Flies, and A High Wind in Jamaica…
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Terry Tyler said:
Fab post, ladies – and Barb, was this a trial run for…. THAT day???!!
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barbtaub said:
I’m not sure this is a trial run for anything (although maybe my next post is!).
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Terry Tyler said:
ps, I’d just like to say that I adore flashback chapters, and love things the reader knows that the other characters don’t!!
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barbtaub said:
I have to agree with you on the flashbacks. And Linda has used the technique brilliantly to create a parallel story that we know before her contemporary characters do.
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lindahuber said:
🙂
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Grab the Lapels said:
It’s a horrifying yet sometimes beautiful relationship, but I really like May and Ruth in The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton.
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