Janet Benton's Blog: One Writer's Path

The e-book of Lilli de Jong is super-cheap right now--was $2.99 for a few days, and as of today it's $3.49. It's a gift that will stay in people's hearts a long time. If you've been put off by cost, I hope you'll take this chance to own the debut novel that so many have loved and praised, including many bestselling authors.

In situations of inequality and prejudice, telling the truth can ruin your life. A work of literature that explores this in a heartbreaking way is Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Young, innocent Tess is sent by her drunken lout of a father to live with a wealthy man in exchange for money. The wealthy man rapes her; she runs away, turns out to be pregnant, and tries to keep her infant alive while working as a farm laborer. Her tiny infant dies. At another farm, she meets the love of her life, a man named Angel. They agree to marry. On the eve of their marriage, she writes a letter confessing the tragedy of her past and slips it beneath the door of his room. Unbeknownst to her, the letter slides beneath a rug. They marry the next day; then she finds the letter, unopened. She gives it to him in the place they’ve gone to honeymoon. He can’t accept her past misfortune and leaves. The rapist comes for her again, hearing of her desperate status, and she becomes his chattel. Then Angel, having changed his mind long before and written letters that the rapist has hidden, comes to her door at last, asking why she never responded. She goes into a mad rage, kills the rapist, and then is hung. Having witnessed Tess’s hanging with her younger sister at his side, Angel walks off into the future with the virginal sister.

Secrets can be terrible. Telling the truth can be terrible. (Thanks to Caroline Leavitt for interviewing me for her blog! There are lots of interviews with me at https://janetbentonauthor.com/intervi...

I thought some of you dedicated book-lovers might be able to relate to what I wrote in this essay just up at Bill Wolfe's blog, Read Her Like an Open Book. Little excerpt: "My heart has been shaped by novels as much as by circumstance. As a child, thanks to my mother, schoolteachers, and our school and town libraries, I read vast amounts of fiction and nonfiction. These precious books introduced me to the lives and struggles of all sorts of people in America and around the world. Through reading, my heart filled and expanded. I held those powerful stories and their authors in high esteem." The full essay is at
www.readherlikeanopenbook.com, just type in my name, or cut and paste https://readherlikeanopenbook.com/201...

Dear readers,

What a thrill it was to learn that LILLI DE JONG, my debut novel and the labor of a decade of my life, is a semifinalist for the Choice Award in Historical Fiction. Won't you please give your vote to this novel, which highlights the power of a mother's love and the bonds between mothers and infants? It's not every day that a novel gives voice to an unwed mother and shows the hard, vital work of all mothers.

Thank you so much for loving books and taking care of their authors. With warm regards, Janet Benton

The best writing advice I’ve gotten came from my former professor Valerie Martin, and I’ve passed it along many times to those who work with me on their books. In one of the writing workshops I took with Valerie, she said something like this: If someone tells you that a feature of your story isn’t believable or isn’t working, don’t assume you need to take that part out or alter it greatly. Instead, consider how you might do a better job of convincing the reader that it does fit and is necessary.

For instance, she said, people don’t read the first line of Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” and say, “I don’t believe Gregor Samsa woke up and discovered he was a cockroach.” Why don’t they say this? Because Kafka convinces us immediately in concrete ways: “One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. He lay on his armour-hard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, his brown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like sections. From this height the blanket, just about ready to slide off completely, could hardly stay in place. His numerous legs, pitifully thin in comparison to the rest of his circumference, flickered helplessly before his eyes.” (Translation by Ian Johnston) As Valerie asked us, What’s not to believe?

I grew up with a world-traveling, feminist mom, an artist, who loved me deeply. I was raised with a great concern for sexism, for families, and for women’s stories. In the novel I’ve written, which takes place in 1883 Philadelphia, I created a world in which mothers’ concerns are paramount, where a mother’s wish to keep her “bastard” child pits her against prejudice and inequality. What women routinely do in pregnancy, labor and delivery, breastfeeding, and the nurturing of helpless humans, all the while fighting the diminishment of our work, ourselves, and our children, deserves a great deal more support and respect. I wrote this novel in the form of a diary of a courageous woman partly in order to make people feel these struggles up close. I hope this will make readers more compassionate toward mothers and children. Mothers suffer too much in an unjust world to love their children and to meet their needs. Like you, I want this to change.

All that said, I hope the novel speaks for itself. Its focus on an unwed mother’s pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, love for her infant, and struggle amid sexism and prejudice—from her point of view—is unusual, if not revolutionary, in fiction. Lilli de Jong persists because trying to protect and nourish her child is what a loving mother will do, regardless of the costs. But there should not be so many costs.

Do you keep a diary and/or like reading diary novels? I just wrote an essay on some reasons my debut novel, LILLI DE JONG, forthcoming tomorrow from Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, is in the form of a diary. Read this essay, just published on the book blog Read Her Like an Open Book (with thanks to blogger Bill Wolfe).

https://readherlikeanopenbook.com/201...

Yow! Thank you, Publishers Weekly. The reviewer loved LILLI DE JONG: "In the forthright prose of its eponymous heroine, Benton’s heartrending debut novel gives voice to the plight of unwed mothers in late-19th-century Philadelphia. Instead of starting a new life with her fiancé, 22-year-old Lilli de Jong discovers that she is pregnant. Once sheltered by her Quaker community, Lilli can no longer associate with respectable society, including her own family. The Philadelphia Haven for Women and Infants promises Lilli a reputable adoption and a fresh start, albeit one built on lies. But nothing prepares Lilli for motherhood and the cruel world beyond. She dares to keep her daughter, but must choose, again and again, between her principles and necessities. Told through Lilli’s journals, the book offers a distressing window into the intersections of motherhood, independence, faith, and class at a time when even affluent white women had little control over their lives. Benton’s exacting research fuels Lilli’s passionate, authentic voice that is 'as strong as a hand on a drum... that pounds its urgent messages across a distance.' Most poignant are the heartfelt depictions of the dualities of motherhood, 'a land where pain and joy are ever mingled and where… every move has consequence.' Lilli’s inspiring power and touching determination are timeless." Buy on Amazon today! Hardcover, e-book, audio book, and large print editions out May 16th.

Wow! Kirkus Reviews loved my novel, calling it a "monumental accomplishment." Here's the link to the review: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...

This is from a commencement address by Toni Morrison. I think it's a powerful statement of the potential of the past to change and liberate us: "The past is already changing as it is being reexamined, as it is being listened to for deeper resonances. Actually it can be more liberating than any imagined future if you are willing to identify its evasions, its distortions, its lies, and are willing to unleash its secrets."