While Eclipse of a Wild Rose is a work of fiction and any references made to real people, events, businesses, organizations, or locations are used fictitiously, I believe every author draws from personal experiences when writing a story. To that end, here’s how my imagination works. A glimpse of white sheers billowing out the broken window of an abandoned trailer spurred me into wondering about its previous occupants. I wrote those words down and promptly stored them away under the numerous musings of a justified rambler of thoughts.
When I eventually got around to outlining the book, I found myself at a stumbling block as to what exactly the protagonist, Sara McKinnon, would find in the trailer. I happened to remember two coins that had inexplicably shown up in my jewelry box several years before, and an oddly perplexing feeling that came over me every time I viewed them. To this day, I have yet to know what they are or how they ended up in my possession. Nevertheless, that is how the coins came into play and became the focus for the book. It still gives me chills to realize that some of the things I initially wrote (of which I knew nothing about) turned out to have some measure of truth in them. For instance, I wrote about a place called Ghana, Africa that I wasn’t at all sure even existed until I did the research. I had already written in draft that the country prospered from the production of cocoa, and that some people who lived there were beekeepers. In doing the research, I discovered a heritage so rich in traditions that I felt compelled to write more about it.
THE REAL DEAL: HURRICANE KATRINA
So much attention was focused on New Orleans, most of the general public never realized how much damage the Mississippi Gulf Coast received. I was a resident in Gulfport, Mississippi when that bad girl, Katrina, reared her ugly head. As much as I’ve tried in this book to portray the atmosphere, the Margaritaville style of the town prior to that event, I will never forget the pit in my stomach the first time I saw the destruction she spewed out in her path, and the feeling that things would be never be the same again. Below are some pictures that my son took a couple of months after the fury had passed.
The first two pictures are of a boat that washed ashore after Hurricane Camille in 1969. Hurricane Katrina destroyed virtually everything surrounding it, but the boat remains, unscathed.
The remaining pictures show places in Katrina’s path. Notice that in some she was relentless in her annihilation. In others, she simply chose to leave alone.
A house that remained, just as it existed before.
An apartment complex after the storm.
And how they survived!
JUDE GARRISON 