Romance as Imagining into the Unknown: Our Mother Writes Romance Novels

I, the eldest, and Rebecca, the youngest of six, discuss our mother's career as a romance novelist with her. What can be done with the Romance genre by a Midwestern mother of six? Romance can be pure escapist fantasy, and dream-like wish fulfillment, or it can be more about making relationships and beauty out of whatever, less-than-optimal cards may have been dealt by life's vicissitudes. Our mother chose the later as she did not want to just escape the disappointments of "real life" but also creatively imagine our given lives as a romantic challenge to make love wherever and however we find ourselves.

My mom's first published was book House Calls. House calls broke onto the romance scene way back in 1988 with a bang. Rebecca was not even a year at the time, so it's up to Mom and me to relate the family's living situation to the context of her book. Mom gives a summary of the book and then all three of us try to pick out the common characteristics of Mom's female and male protagonists.

How do our day dreams of romance affect the trajectory of our lives? Mom talks about why she chose to write romance novels and how her books effected some of those who read them. Her second book "The Wedding March" features a kind of heroine that we've come to associate with Mom's books, in that she's feisty and somewhat independent, but this one is actually looking to get married, which none of the other protagonists covered so far were. Mom discusses her own struggle to find her way after marrying and starting a family quite young. How do her novels disclose her changing ideas about what romance, marriage, and family mean? Join us for a rip roaring couple of episodes of My "Mother Writes Romance Novels," episodes 2 on House Calls and episode 3 on The Wedding March.