Now that THE GRANDSONS (Book 6) has launched (albeit unexpectedly early), I can reveal some of the themes that weave through the series. In this latest volume, I didn't hold back letting the theme show. It is in the epigram at the beginning, a quote from "The Way of the Son" - the opera Maggie composes based on the notebooks of her great-grandfather, Sandy. In fact, Book 2 is titled THE WAY OF THE SON and follows Sandy and his young family as they struggle to survive after leaving the island where they briefly had sanctuary. That year-long adventure becomes a test for Sandy. He nearly succeeds only to ultimately fail in DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS (Book 3).
The Way of the Son is fraught with
danger, menace at every turn, and a lot of stupid mistakes that pop up when you
least can handle them.
Sandy writes the line in one of his notebooks, and Maggie draws from it for her opera at the end of THE GRANDDAUGHTER (Book 5). Bart sees the start of her composing effort before he disappears. Yet the theme stays with Bart, haunts him, providing a challenge for him. He takes it as a test for himself, believing he must do better than his ancestor did. Bart, too, has many of the same flaws and does the same kind of things Sandy failed at. Bart is a flawed character, in literary critic terms, who tries and tries but fails as much as he succeeds. Partly it is due to his circumstances, but more often his varied choices, perceptions, and how moments turn him back and forth like a weathervane in the wind. In the end, the storm comes for him.
As THE GRANDSONS launches, I've been writing a new book, what I could call Book 7. It began as a lark, something to do while THE GRANDSONS sat to await one more read-through/revision. Tying the timeline together with other books of mine (see this post), I set this new story more than 200 years after Bart's time. Civilization has fallen further, become medieval - even in Missouri. It shall be titled THE WARRIORS BAUMANN.
At one point our heroes meet some actors who perform the famous play "The Way of the Son" - based on the songfest by Maggie Baumann. Everyone knows some of the songs from the old opera, it seems. As a comedy, Book 7 plays the play for laughs, twists lines so they now sound like legend rather than the scribbling of a desperate teen boy trying to save his young wife and daughter during a pandemic.
Another major theme in the series involves the often tumultuous relationship between mothers and sons.
THE BOOK OF MOM (Book 1) gives us Sandy and his single, never-married mother, Polly, a music professor and tuba player. She's gotten along on her own for most of her life and often lords over her autistic son. Sandy sees her behavior as love, protecting him, encouraging him to stand tall and be strong as the pandemic worsens and they flee their city. It is time for him to be tough, so his mother pushes him, teases him, makes him be strong for what lies ahead. Up to a point where Sandy realizes his mother's weaknesses and unrealistic advice. He tries to save her only to fail. His failure gets him and his young wife/cousin exiled from the island sanctuary - leading to THE WAY OF THE SON where he must grow up fast and take charge, though often making mistakes - much like Bart does in Book 6.
To a lessor extent, there is mother - daughter conflict in DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS, but adult Sandy still struggles to reconcile his relationship with his mother.
As baby Isla grows into a young woman, she becomes the mother who has conflicts with her own son, Fritz (who goes by Frank in adulthood). Fritz also tries to figure out his mother in THE BOOK OF DAD (Book 4) as she reaches the end of her life. Being in the reconstructed capital with all of its Ideal Society rules and restrictions, Fritz/Frank fights to tell the truth about what happened during and after the pandemic - even as government entities, including his own older half-sister (Isla's daughter) who is now in charge, refuse to accept it as truth. This Big Sister insists the pandemic never happened: only a few localized pockets of sickness. Fritz/Frank upholds his mother's lived experiences to his detriment.
And in THE GRANDSONS we find young Bart at odds with his mother, Maggie, who wishes him to follow in her musical footsteps only to see him take more interest in his uncle's ranch and desire to follow him as a lawman. As Bart struggles to "find himself" he knows he can't face his mother again after what has happened. Yet his mother continues to haunt him as he goes through his life. Dreams, nightmares, visions, voices, ghosts seem to rag on him too many times, keeping him on edge.
A final major theme weaving through the series is the idea of needing someone to carry on: the family name, the family blood, ideas about connectedness and salvation in survival.
In each book characters raise the idea of carrying on the family, like it is a crucial task - which would make sense in a time of pandemic, virus, and death. Who will survive? By golly, we need someone to survive. That idea pressures the characters to try to have babies. Even a group of scientists has set up a breeding program since half the population has been lost through disease, war, and starvation.
It isn't so much a matter of the author's personal beliefs (I know many people do not want children or are unable to have children), but in this story setting the urgency to make a baby is truly a matter of survival. It is a realistic situation, a plausible mindset. Each generation in the series eventually must rely on the younger generation to care for them and to carry on the family, to continue civilization, and therefore humanity - a universal theme.
This final theme shall definitely reappear in THE WARRIORS BAUMANN, leading to the ultimate novel to be titled: A TIME OF KINGS.
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Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.
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