jodi daynard

Gwen sat on her daughter's twin bed, staring at herself in a mirror they'd attached to the back of the door. It refracted the room's ambient light and gave the illusion of space. It also multiplied the flower decals Sophie had stuck on the walls and the Janice Joplin poster above her bed. Their realtor had called it a one-bedroom, but they all knew that was a lie. It was really a studio with a walk-in closet. But Gwen had been desperate to leave the Victorian townhome she'd shared with Jeremy down in Grammercy Park, and this place was the first thing she found. In hindsight, the signs of infidelity were everywhere--on Jeremy's fragrant coat, in Jeremy's smile--but Gwen was blind to them. For a while, her eye had not been on Jeremy at all but on the country at large. She had reported on the riots in Omaha the previous spring, when violence erupted after George Wallace announced his run for the presidency. By June, the riots had reached Newark, leaving twenty-six dead. And, somewhere in there, she had traveled to New Orleans to cover District Attorney Jim Garrison's investigation of President Kennedy's assassination. Garrison was convinced, along with a growing number of others, that Oswald did not kill Kennedy despite the Warren Commission's claims. Her eye was on these stories, not Jeremy. And she wrote in a blind heat, too, against deadlines that made conventional time irrelevant. At the Associated Press, it was always news-time somewhere. Sophie, her fifteen-year-old daughter, had gone to an anti-war march that morning, and Gwen had let her go. Recently, she had begun missing school and hanging out with the college kids up at Columbia. Gwen thought maybe it was a way to cope with the family's breakup, which Gwen had not yet fully explained, in part because Sophie had not challenged Gwen's lie that they had fought about Gwen's job. And Gwen, also to her surprise, found herself loathe to tell Sophie the truth. Not to protect Jeremy so much as to protect her daughter, which might actually amount to the same thing. Gwen made a cross-eyed face in the mirror, laughed at herself, and finally stood up. She found her sneakers, grabbed her purse, and left the apartment. On the landing, she lit a cigarette and headed down the stairs, because the elevator was impossibly slow. Sophie had been cooking their meals ever since they left Jeremy. Simple things, like Campbells chicken soup and a salad, or burgers on English muffins. Sometimes, they ordered a peperoni pizza or Chinese. But today, Gwen's conscience bit at her, and she planned to have dinner on the table when Sophie returned from the march. The day was sunny but cold. Gwen turned left on 101st Street, wanting to avoid the protesters. She stepped on something that oozed out from beneath her foot. The sanitation worker's strike had ended, but remains were everywhere, spilling out from trash cans: dirty diapers, chewed lamb chops, scattered green peas, cigarette butts. Paper plates skidded down the sidewalks carrying soggy pizza crusts that look like bloated fingers. At 74th Street, Gwen dodged several honking yellow cabs to cross Broadway. A young mother wearing a velvet equestrian hat careened past her pushing a huge blue stroller. An old woman using a grocery cart as a walker passed by, her head a pink cactus of jumbo curlers. A closer look revealed that her fuzzy pink coat was actually a bathrobe. Beneath Fairway's awning, someone who looked like Seiji Ozawa carefully chose apples from an outdoor bin. Suddenly, the famous conductor turned, and his shiny black hair swept across his shoulders as he flashed her a sweet, boyish smile. Gwen caught up with the protestors heading up Broadway half an hour later. College kids held hand-drawn signs that read, "Hell, No, We Won't Go!" and "What For? Stop the War!" Black students protested both the war and oppression: "Give money to the ghettos, not the war machine!" They were loud but not violent. She didn't see Sophie anywhere. By this point, her arms strained under the weight of two heavy grocery bags. Gwen skirted around the edge of the crowd for the final sprint home, took the stairs two at a time, and unlocked the door just as the phone began to ring. She dropped the groceries in the doorway and ran to pick up the phone. "Mom?" she heard her daughter's fretful voice. "Mom, I need you to pick me up." "Why? Where are you?" I just passed the march. I thought you were with them." There was a brief pause. Then Sophie said, "I'm in jail."

Hello, all! Happy to be here, and I look forward to meeting you in person. Act of Story A young investigative reporter, her drive far beyond accepted parameters for a woman in 1968, must eventually make an agonizing choice: pursue one of the most important investigations of her times, the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, or embrace her newfound love, family, and community in a coastal Maine village. Antagonist All the male characters in this novel act in eerie unison to prevent Gwen from discovering the truth about who really killed Bobby Kennedy: the LAPD, the special investigators, Gwen's own bureau chief, who "spikes" her stories so frequently that Gwen suspects he is a puppet of higher powers; finally, her mysterious new love interest, a lobsterman who continually urges her to quit and come home. But the true antagonist is the unknown murderer(s) of Bobby Kennedy, whose manipulation and deadly threat Gwen feels but can't see. Title A Wilderness of Mirrors This title works on several levels, and I honestly can't think of a better one. Founding CIA spy James Jesus Angleton gave this name to the CIA; it perfectly describes the infinite regress that marks Gwen's pursuit of the truth in the Kennedy assassination; finally, the title serves as a metaphor for Gwen's blind spots in her personal life as well. Comps 1. The Beach House, Rachel Hannah (2019) - Women's Fiction small town romance about a wife and mother whose life, like Gwen's, is shattered by infidelity and who builds a new life after buying a house on a small South Carolina island. 2. A Lie Too Big to Fail: The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Lisa Pease (2018). Based on two decades of research, Pease shares explosive and little-known facts about this high-profile murder. 3. On the Trail of the Assassins, Jim Garrison. Former New Orleans district attorney narrates his years-long investigation into the broad network of those involved in the JFK assassination and the dangerous obstacles he faced in getting the facts out. EDITED TO ADD: 4. The Midwife's Revolt, Jodi Daynard. It occurrs to me that I should add my first novel, since a) it sold a lot of books (250,000+) ; b) its readers might buy my new book based on liking it; and c) although set 200 years earlier, it, too, is about a young woman who investigates a suspicious death and also tries to prevent an attempted political assassination. On the one hand, A Wilderness of Mirrors is the story we've watched many times on the Hallmark Movie Channel: "Ambitious Urban Professional escapes to picturesque old-timey village and falls in love with gorgeous plumber/bookstore manager/electrician, never return to the impersonal city." BUT...woven into the fabric of this feel-good story is a True Crime murder, one of the most important unsolved mysteries of the 20th century. Based on two years of research, A Wilderness of Mirrors presents not only many little-known facts of the case but also actual witness testimony built directly into the dialogue. Tag Line A gifted young reporter must choose between pursuing one of the most important investigations of her times or embracing newfound love, motherhood, and community in a Maine coastal village. Inner Conflict (not hypothetical, as the novel is finished) Gwen investigates the Kennedy assassination despite the work's constant affirmation that she is not truly womanly and not maternal. The increasing unwillingness on the part of her editor to publish her stories despite their explosive content, the increasing misinformation about the assassination in the media, make quitting an enticing option. But Gwen would then lose the only identity she has ever known. Social conflict Gwen goes off to Los Angeles and ignores the warning signals from her teenage daughter, who is grieving Kennedy's death and heading for a breakdown. She also ignores the increasiingly strong warnings from her new love interest, believing him to be just another patronizing man. Gwen doesn't know that he is ex-CIA and thus far more knowledgeable about the dangers of her investigation than she is. Setting 1968. It is a turbulent time, and the novel is set against this turbulence: the Vietnam War, the race riots, the assassination of MLK, Jr., and the upcoming presidential election. The novel opens on the Upper West Side of New York just after the sanitation workers strike of February, 1968. The streets are still littered with garbage. The city feels chaotic. An anti-war demonstration fills Broadway, the streets are crowded with a bizarre medley of people, and Gwen's fourth-floor walkup studio, which she shares with her daughter, all serve to create a claustrophic and untenable environemnt. The Village of Round Pond, Maine, is the antithesis of New York: Everyone knows everyone, and the upoming Pumpkinfest is a highlight of people's lives. There are charity bake sales, knitting circles, and no one likes the Kennedy family. To Gwen and her daughter, it feels like a time capsule of the 1950s, and they don't know if they can "stick it" in such a provincial place. But it grows on them... Los Angeles, The Ambassador Hotel. Bling personified, with all that it implies: material values, anti-intellectualism, shallowness, and even deceit. There's a cinematic quality to everything, where reality and fiction blur. What's more, the malignant atmosphere after Kennedy's assassination could not be more different from Gwen's bucolic coastal village. Gwen's changing attitude toards LA --from the exilaration of feeling at the top of her game to her revulsion at its shallowness and temerity--serves to backlight her personal arc.