“You Can't Always Get What You Want:” As a writer, how will I know whether it’s worth it to sweat the small stuff?
A recent interview for my next book has me pondering what we think we know and what information we decide is important to seek. I’m thinking as an author yet feeling that these questions apply in all our lives.
You Can't Always Get What You Want
By The Rolling Stones
…You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes, you might find
You get what you need
I’m so grateful for my network of folks, Black and white, who’ve lived the history I write about. When I put out feelers for someone to ask about football at the formerly all-Black high school in my hometown Meridian, MS, I was referred to Mr. Frank Dickey, Harris High Class of 1962.
As is sometimes the case with a referral, I didn’t have much else to go on. As always, I prepared my questions and scheduled a call.
From our hellos, Frank was full of surprises. My “interview” became a more than two-hour conversation. Yes, we talked about football at Harris. But that topic took up relatively little of our time together.
Surprise #1: Frank was about one-third of the way into reading The FOG MACHINE! I realized that, while I have had many readers, most of those providing feedback have been female.
Of particular importance to me was Frank’s validation that it was the mothers who impressed upon their sons that there was a code. “I was talking to some brothers the other day about that,” he told me. “That expression—boys don’t get no second chances—speaks volumes to the experiences I and many other Black males had during those times.”
Not long after our conversation, Frank let me know that he had finished reading. “I found it most stimulating. It filled the void I had regarding the Freedom Summer in Meridian. I was away then studying at Tougaloo. As you know, the statewide news media didn’t cover that historical summer.”
I deeply appreciate Frank’s feedback on my first book. Our discussion, from a literary perspective, of it and my current project is one of the most memorable I’ve had.
Surprise #2: While at Tougaloo, Frank participated in boycotts and the Woolworth’s sit-in in Jackson, MS, in 1963. He knew Civil Rights Movement activists who were part of the Jackson Movement and have continued lifelong activism. The late John Salter Jr., Advisor to the North Jackson NAACP Youth Council. The late Anne Moody whose book Coming of Age in Mississippi: The Classic Autobiography of Growing Up Poor and Black in the Rural South (1968) was transformative in my education for writing my Freedom Summer-centric historical novel. Joan Trumpauer (Mulholland), who was the first white student to attend Tougaloo College. Reverend Ed King, Tougaloo’s white chaplain. And sisters Joyce and the late Dorie Ladner, who were leading community organizers in Mississippi for the NAACP and SNCC during the sixties.
Here Frank is in a photo from Mike O’Brien’s seminal work We Shall Not Be Moved: The Jackson Woolworth’s Sit-In and the Movement It Inspired (2013).
This photo from The New York Times Magazine (June 16, 1963) features faces of the movement. As Frank so charmingly pointed out: “Note that both images show me wearing the same sweater.”
Here Frank is with Rev. Ed King at the 50th anniversary commemoration of the historic Woolworth desegregation in 2013. You will also find Rev. King in my novel in connection with his role in Freedom Summer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
Surprise #3: Not the least of the surprises, indeed gifts, I received through conversing with Frank Dickey is the opportunity to reminisce about the time in Meridian in which my next book will be set, the era of school desegregation. Together we recalled people, places, and stories.
Perhaps detecting unsettledness when we spoke about the challenges I find myself in the midst of with this next book, Frank—son of a Baptist minister—offered this encouragement: “You know, the Good Lord will sometimes speak to you and let you know where you need to go.”
That recent conversation with Frank Dickey—which strayed from my expectations but offered many surprises—reminded me of another investigative effort. Back in 2007 I was researching Judaism and synagogues in Chicago’s Hyde Park for The FOG MACHINE. Because I was raised Catholic, I was on solid ground when creating the Barnes family. But as Zach Bernstein’s character became an integral part of my story, I needed to educate myself about Judaism—from the food, to worship practices, to beliefs.
I recalled how, in 1968, Temple Beth Israel in Meridian, MS was bombed, and rumors spread labeling the act as Klan retaliation against civil rights sympathizers. Knowing of the role of reform Jews in the Civil Rights Movement, I sought to connect with reform rabbis and congregants in Chicago.
Front windows (west façade) of current Temple Beth Israel.
Windows contain glass from the former education building, bombed in 1968.
Attribution: By Dudemanfellabra - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10670215
I set out to determine which Jewish synagogue would have been the most likely for Zach to attend. I hoped, indeed expected, to be able to drop my character into that synagogue. Chicago Sinai Congregation appealed both because in 1963 it was physically located in Hyde Park—where Zach lives and attends the University of Chicago—and because it offered Sunday services.
Rabbi Evan Moffic had become Temple Sinai’s Assistant Rabbi in 2006. I reached out to him first. He graciously led me to multiple rabbis and even gave me an idea for a sermon. My informal Jewish education was proceeding nicely, but I was not yet helped with description of Chicago Sinai when it was in Hyde Park.
While I was connecting with various rabbis, I happened to read about Donna Epstein Barrows in an article in the Chicago Jewish Daily, “Always on Sunday: Chicago Sinai is still doing things the Classical Reform way,” by Pauline Dubkin Yearwood. I emailed Donna, asking to talk and describing my primary interest as gaining a better understanding of what the Hyde Park temple looked like—inside and out—and how it felt to be there, especially for the Sunday morning service and reception.
Donna welcomed a conversation but let me know that it was as an adult, in 1982, that she became an active member of Sinai and what the congregation was like in 1982 was much different than what it was like during my 1963 focus. She suggested that she put me in touch with people who were adults back then.
Donna’s connections led to others, which in turn led to still others. Miriam Letchinger threw me a curveball. “I regret to say that I think your assumption about the role of Sinai in the Civil Rights Movement is not entirely correct,” she wrote. She went on to say that she believed her accompanying notes would provide me with timely Hyde Park information. Importantly, she encouraged me to learn more about the Hillels of Illinois.
Ultimately, I realized a consensus among those I’d interviewed that KAM Isaiah Israel in the Kenwood neighborhood was more a center of activism, while Sinai was more liturgically liberal. With neither being quite right, I decided to create a fictional Reform synagogue that melded those aspects. And to have the rabbinical influence be an understated one, where the power of one or more sermons would compel my character to act after he became informed through campus organizations, such as Hillel, at the University of Chicago.
Photo from: https://www.uchicagohillel.org/building-and-history
Johanna and Herman H Newberger Hillel Center
5715 S. Woodlawn, University of Chicago
Surprisingly, the most difficult detail to work out at that point was the naming of my fictional Reform synagogue. Hebrew meanings and grammar, as well as resemblances fortunate or otherwise to other synagogues, had to be considered. This challenge brought me back to Donna and her then rabbi, Michael Sternfield, plus Rabbi Paul Saiger of the Hillels of Illinois for help.
I chose “Mevakshei Tzedek” which means those who pursue justice. When I let Donna know, she exclaimed “What a labor to write a book!” And she asked: “Does every author sweat the small stuff?”
When Donna asked, my consideration of her question was limited. As a reader, I choose books whose authors do sweat the small stuff. There’s nothing quite as dissatisfying as being thrown out of the story by having encountered an error that causes me to question what else the author might have gotten wrong. As a writer, I will always choose to sweat the details.
And yet that expectation I had early in my writing journey illustrates why I’m now pondering what we think we know and what information we decide is important to seek. Expecting that I might find the perfect synagogue for my story, I began my research with an idea of how to influence my Jewish character relative to the Civil Rights Movement. Somewhat naively, I sought validation of my working theory about one of Chicago’s synagogues. I think I was looking for quick answers so I could get back to writing.
In hindsight, I’m so glad I did not get quick answers!
As in this remembrance, experience has taught me that what I think I do and don’t know can serve as my beginning premise, but that premise must neither excuse me from validating it nor constrain my research. That it is my responsibility to choose an open-ended path to researching. And that researching in that way, whether an obscure fact or complicated choice, always leads to rewards.
Had I not persisted, my understanding of the times, the cultural history of Hyde Park, and Judaism would have been diminished. And I would have betrayed the obligation to write authentically that I feel towards my readers.
What does this mean to you—whether you are a writer or not? Is it worth it to sweat the small stuff?
Perhaps only hindsight will allow you to answer that question.
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