Yes, Virginia, there really is a rape culture

During the ongoing frenzy surrounding some American judicial appointment which struck me as Political Porn—and it was Political Porn in the true, etymological sense given that “Pornography” was once used to describe the writing about prostitution which has also been defined as “the unworthy or corrupt use of one's talents for personal or financial gain.”—I thought on ways to get out of the quagmire that social/political debate has become.

And in that I had to consider those who line up on either side of the political/social/gender divides. Those whose heartfelt conviction end up being little more than gasoline on a fire that I believe has been lit to distract us from the more nefarious activities of those who really shape our world. And that is not to detract from the validity of those statements and arguments. But they are just that: deeply held convictions about what should be right and what should be normalized.

What concerns me more about all of this is the widening of the divides between people who have far more in common than their “Masters” would want them to realize.

Central to this current “discussion” is whether or not a man can impose himself on a woman with impunity, and if that woman takes so long in coming forward with her allegations, can they be trusted. Never mind all the chatter about the Clintons and the far-left; they are just there to inflame and distract.

My observations on life, be it what I have seen, heard, or read, would say that not only can someone do that but, if they have the necessary influence, they can get away with it and leave their accuser with insult on top of injury.

However, to claim this is a “Man versus Woman” issue is a contortion and one that is contradicted by the number of women who, because of political alignment, publicly support the particular man in this situation. It also discounts the less highlighted issues of the rape of men which happens whether we want to believe it or not.

“Rape,” which was once defined as "to snatch, to grab, to carry off" and was usually accompanied by “Pillage,” is a much wider issue than the matter of sexual violence. It points to the underlying attitudes that are shared by Patrimonies, Aristocracies, Religions, and all those other gatherings of the powerful.

Without minimizing the brutal and dehumanizing impact of rape in the sexual term, considering it as a tool of power should make it easier for more people to galvanize against it. The current view that only men rape—and that other men condone it—serves only to divide and make conquerable.

However, the suggestion that there is a rape culture is impossible to ignore. Not only that, but it is endorsed and enshrined in many of the Bronze Age texts that many claim are the word of their god. Even the Greek Pantheon celebrated the sexual violence of their gods.

From the beginning, rape and pillage, have been central to the way we treat each other, the other life forms we share the planet with, and even the planet itself—Capitalism being the current glorification of snatching, grabbing, and carrying off.

It is central to how we see ourselves and it is, to my mind, the crux of the problem that we must address if we are to avoid the disastrous future we are all hurtling towards. Rape and pillage have been the cornerstones on which our empires have been built—even unto this day. The subjection of others for the sake of our sacred creeds and manifestos is rape and pillage. The extreme behavior of drunken “boys being boys” is rape and pillage, as is regime change, exploitation, genocide and all the things we endorse our governments to do on our behalf.

The use of force can be expeditious and more profitable, but we have often been warned that what goes around, comes around.  We cannot go on endorsing, by consent or disinterest, the widespread use of violence against women, children, men, and then vent our outrage when it is turned on us. We cannot go on celebrating those who use any form of power and force as a weapon.

We cannot go on arguing along political/social/gender lines. We cannot go on venting our outrage and adding to the bonfires lit to distract us. We cannot go dividing ourselves as “Left” or “Right,” “Male” or “Female.” That only leads to division and a weakening of whatever influence we might have. And switching the “brand” of our political representation may not be enough.

We must condemn all “Rape and Pillage.”

Writing about family #3

A few helpful tips on raising writers.

In this ongoing series of posts, I, without expertise, prejudice, or agenda, will share my insights and/or observations on writing about family. The previous posts were on a more general level so in this one, lets dive into the heart of the matter that is children writing about their parents and what parents can do to avoid the worst-case scenarios.

Writing about terrible childhoods has been done to death but as long as people are foolish enough to reproduce, there will be those offspring who will grow to be writers with scores to settle. And there will be readers who will devour the resulting stuff.

Now having been someone’s child, and then someone’s parent, I have an evolving view on both roles. Growing up in Ireland, I often heard the grown-ups use the term: “who is she when she’s at home?” It always struck me as a very peculiar saying until I realized that many of us are not who we think we are and nowhere is that more evident than in the home.

It rings true for all members of a family and primarily for parents who are little more than former children now rearing children with no manual or guide book and only their own parents as role models. It’s little wonder the whole world is going mad.

You see, once upon a time, family was a much more straightforward thing. We had biblical references that glorified the role of the patriarch. We had television shows that laid it out for us, Leave it to Beaver, Father knows best, etc... Parents were wise and sober, understanding and forgiving, and everyone was happy in their appointed roles.

Or so we wished to believe. But then along came exposés and gave us a new culture where all fathers were portrayed as drunken tyrants who took out the frustration of their empty, meaningless lives on their families. Consumer driven mothers were unsatisfied and unfulfilled and managed only by popping pills while children grew up to drop out and tune in. For a number of years, it almost seemed like the most preferred pedigree.

Now here’s a question for you to ponder: were parents so bad back then or were children just whiney?

Of course, outside of the cultural stereotypes most parents get on with their lives as best they can, keeping roofs over heads, food on the tables, and trying to propel the next generation forward. These types of families are better to grow up in, but are not the stuff of riveting sensationalism. Especially in an age where dysfunctionality has become the new normal.

Now there are certain expectations that come with starting a family and being kind to children rates fairly high in most cultures—with a few obvious exceptions. I think this is wise as a general rule if for no other reason than the chance that your child could turn out to be a writer. Sadly, there is no way a parent can know such things when handed their little bundles of responsibility so it might be better to err on the side of caution.

Giving children paper and crayons and locking them in a room with a deadline would probably be frowned on in this age. And it would very likely be misrepresented in the resulting tell-all, resplendent with bug-like drawings of people with frowny faces and all the inherited traumas of life.

Sending your children off to boarding school could be an option for some, but even that does not come with guarantees; more likely a recipe for a tale of abandonment and disinterest.

Indulging your writerly child is also fraught with pitfalls. And, if you have more than one child, there is the matter of balance and equality. You run the risk of being accused of favoritism and while the conflicting views of the resulting tell-alls might drive book sales, you will come out looking badly in all accounts.

Having been a child, and then a parent, I have thought long and hard about this and many of the aspects of family life in general. The old adage that it takes a village to raise a child sounds wonderful but now that we all live in our psychologically gated communities, that becomes less relevant. No, I think the matter requires a new way of thinking for a new age.

Simply put, no one should be allowed to write about their parents until they have had children of their own.

Just wondering who you are

Here is a list of visits to this blog by country

United States         8790
Canada         3900
Russia         2896
United Kingdom 1385
Ireland         1273
Portugal                 1152
Germany         1052
France           776
Poland           573
Ukraine           398

Now I was wondering who you all are.

Drop by and say "Hi" Peter Murphy

A nice review of The Last Weekend of the Summer

THE LAST WEEKEND OF THE SUMMER by Peter Murphy is a revealing tale of one family brought together in the hopes of healing old wounds before it is too late to ever do so. A loving and slightly quirky matriarch has a secret to share, and wishes her family to come together for one last summer weekend at her lakeside home. Is Gloria dying? Is she finally unable to live on her own?

Emotional and relatable, readers will find at least one character they recognize from their own families! Witness the dynamics, the shortfalls, the personality clashes, and the role each member plays, regardless of the generation they belong to. Then be part of the secret that is revealed, feel the torment, the turmoil, the anger and the love as one family finds growth, change and renewal through healing and reaching out to one another.

Thought provoking, sometimes humorous, sometimes agitating, this is a true slice of life being part of a family of flawed humans.

First published at Tome Tender

Publication Day

August 28^th, 2018 is the day my fifth novel, THE LAST WEEKEND OF THE SUMMER, goes out into the world. I wish it well and that it meets kind readers along its path. It is a good book—if I may say so myself—and early reviews suggest that I am not alone in thinking that. I take book writing very seriously and am happier when the result is taken seriously.

However, I have learned not to take myself too seriously and with growing insight I am able to separate the value of a book from its reception in the market place. I had to. Back when I started out, I had but an academic view of the business of writing. In frivolous moments I even indulged myself in the fantasy many people share that authors were respected and revered, adored and well-rewarded.

While I wait for that to happen to me, I have found something much more suited to the person I really am. The small, but growing, band of people who have enjoyed my books and have taken the time to express their thoughts and reactions. Now that is the real prize and it is far more useful. Hearing about what resonates with readers, and what does not, helps the receptive author with future books. Like most people, I could be tempted into believing my own hype, despite leading a very contrary life.

I had wanted to write since I was young, but did not get around to it until I was in my fifties. Life, addiction, recovery, reformation, love, marriage, and children, all had to be experienced before I was “qualified” to write the types of books that I would write. I am not unhappy about that as I like to think of all of those years as my time spent in research—and time very well spent.

By virtue of all that I had learned along the roads I have traveled, I was less bothered when my books elicited less than favorable responses from some. Readers, who are people, come to books with their own experiences and in an age of trolling and sniping, civility can sometimes be overlooked.

Likewise, consumerism and marketing strive to lead us to believe that everything we buy and consume should enrich us the way we want to be enriched. That is not always the case and especially so with books. Some books should shake us out of our complacencies. Some books should confront us and entice us to look at things differently—especially when they expose us to viewpoints that we might not already share.

Now while I do understand the vital roles certain genres of books play in offering comfort and enjoyment, I am a great believer in mixed diets. In my own reading, I do pick up books that might seem to have less appeal and often encounter pleasant surprises. I also think it is a recipe for being a better human being. Living in psychological ghettoes and only going to the churches of the like-minded disconnects us and makes us very prone to being misled by vain populists, and the like. But that is just my opinion—based on observations and experience from a very varied life.

Writing books has become essential to my health and wellbeing. Without that I could be roaming the streets, snapping and snarling at all who do not live their lives the way I think they should. Instead, I wander around and study them. I try not to judge and prefer to try to imagine what made them what they are. I believe in trying to be kind—which can be very trying—but when it comes to the characters I write, I believe it is essential. Even villains must be crafted with some love and understanding, otherwise they could turn out to be very one-dimensional caricatures. That might work in some forms of storytelling like pantomime, or history, but it just won’t cut it when writing fiction.

So after I mark the “birth” of my new book, I will get back to working on my next, next one.

In the meantime, for giveaways and other things, check out the happenings below.

http://peterdmurphy.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Peter.Damien.Murphy

https://peterdamienmurphy.blogspot.com/

A simple solution for Brexiteers

I hate seeing people suffer angst so it pains me to see the British people trying to come to terms with the reality delivered by the referendum of a few years ago. In voting for the “Leave” option, they are now confronted by a prospect few really understood, and even less know how to implement.

Steering clear of the rhetoric and other noises, I have a very simple solution. Given that most of the “Leave” voters were older it is possible for everyone to go around saying Britain has left Europe until they have all died off.

It can be easily done. By determining where they get their “information,” a steady stream of post Brexit “facts and figures” can be fed to them while having little of no adverse effect on the younger population who had voted to “Remain.”

Of course they would have to go along with it all and mind their “P’s & Q’s” at family gatherings, and the like.

And Facebook might have to come up with the necessary algorithm to ensure that the appropriate “facts” are fed to the correct demographics. 

I am sure Cambridge Analytics could help, too. Even the Russians might want to get involved. As for Trump—well it might just be better to not mention it on Twitter.

“But people will be able to see through it,” you claim.

Remember the red bus?

A few helpful tips on writing about family.

Writing about family can be a very dangerous business because not all families teem with the ideals of unconditional love and the consistent and constant support so often attributed to the institution.
   

Many, it would seem, are populated with jealous and cranky contrarians who have the ability to see slights in everything, said or unsaid, action or inactivity, presence or absence; the types that will see themselves in books that are not about them and cannot when they are.

These are the sort of people that will never be happy with how you have written them. If presented in less than flattering light, they will threaten legal action, disowning, or shunning. While if you choose to be more positive, they will go around telling everybody that they were your inspiration and that your book would not have been any good without them.

And if you decide to leave them out and write about other family members you risk being accused of favoritism, or worse.

So, if you do come from one of those families, it might be better not to write about them at all. Even if you know it would get you on an Oprah-like show. In addition to the points raised above, this world is already full of those kinds of books and given the times we live in, dysfunctionality has become the new norm.

I jest, of course.

Writing about family is for many writers, like hitting the mother lode, particularly those with axes to grind and old scores to settle. Those with scarred and twisted emotions that are often the legacy of growing up in, what from the outside appeared to be, a normal family.

This should also be a major consideration before starting a family and entering into parenthood. And, if you must, then teach your children to read and leave it at that. Whatever you do, don’t teach them how to write. No good will come of it and besides, they can get by in today’s world with emojis, and the likes. Or they can take selfies to express their emotions if they are especially needy and attention driven.

Teaching a child to write is not much different than inviting an investigative journalist into a cult. Even if there is no story to tell, they can make one up and sell it as creative fiction.

But it you have already, then you could consider a preemptive strike. You could pen your version of MY LIFE WITH THOSE HORRIBLE KIDS THAT SUCKED THE MARROW FROM MY BONES AND THEN COMPLAIN THAT THEIR INHERITANCE WILL BE TOO SMALL. Or something with a catchier title.

Whatever you do, even if your offspring had taken to following you around with a notebook—or modern equivalent, don’t think about deserting them. As tempting as it might sound it really would just be dowsing the smoldering embers of angst with gasoline. The deserted child who becomes a writer will make you out to be a drunken philanderer who ran away from all responsibility, even if you had been abducted by a landing party of malevolent alien intruders.

Or course, if that happened, you might just have a best seller on your hands, as well as some really sweet vindication.

And children, if you find yourselves the offspring of a writer, just put yourself up for adoption. Despite the obvious downside, it could be far better than growing up with all the neglect, moodiness, self-doubt, and obsessiveness that writers are known for.

But if that is not the life for you, try sucking up to them. Bring them coffee. Keep the dog and the cat out of the study. Learn to cook and wash, and iron. Tell them their work is brilliant. Tell them whatever it takes to get them to finish the book. Who knows? They might get famous after they die and leave the royalties to you.

And if you are the sibling of a writer . . . well as a writer with siblings I just happen to have a few opinions on that.

First of all, buy their books even if you have to take out a loan to do it. It will be cheaper than having to listen to them moan and complain about how the world is incapable of recognizing their genius when they come over to crash on your couch for a few months.

Secondly, loan them money even if you have to sell blood for it. It’s the only way to get rid of a writer and you can get your couch back.

Thirdly, never publicly criticize anything they write about you. Always be supportive and encouraging until they have made it. Then write your own tell all and cash in.

But I jest . . .

My family-centric novel The Last Weekend of the Summer comes out in August: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1611882575

And in the meantime, I will be writing a few blog posts on family—for better or worse.

You can read them at: http://peterdamienmurphy.blogspot.com/

Or my website: http://peterdmurphy.com/

Writing about Family

Just as the next (last) book is about to go out and meet the world, I got a nice message from my publisher informing me that the number of requests to review were encouraging. It was tempting, but I am too hoary to be getting excited about chickens and eggs. Not cynical, just experienced enough to take it all—success and success deferred—for what it really is.

Like most writers, I had hoped that my first book would change the world and set all to rights. It did for a few, but most people remain blissfully unaware of it and I learned to be okay with that. I just went on and wrote some more.

That is why I use the term “next (last).” Because right after I send a manuscript off to the publisher, I start on the next one. And so it is now. The Last Weekend of the Summer comes out in August and I am half way through the next, next one.

I do it because it is only from this safe distance that I can look back at what I have done. The Last Weekend of the Summer was a bit of a departure for me in that Ireland, and things Irish, gets no mention throughout. I am still Irish, I suppose, but I am . . . in recovery.

The Last Weekend came about after a conversation with my editor and publisher, the great human being that is Lou Aronica at The Story Plant. Having finished the Life & Times trilogy, I asked for his advice as to what I should do about growing my audience—a question, he told me, he is often asked.

“Write to your strengths,” he told me. “You write convincingly about interpersonal conflicts.” (Or words to that effect.)

So I did, and while I have had varied experiences with interpersonal conflicts, both my own and others, in all the areas of life that I have wandered through, the most obvious one, to my mind, was the ultimate testing ground of human interaction; family.

Family is the whole world in a microcosm. It is where we begin to understand that we are not alone in the universe and that we are not the center of it all, either. Although, through personal experience and observations of all that was going on around me, it seems to me that some of those understandings can elude certain people—or be contorted into something else, entirely. You know the ones I mean . . . we all have a few of them hanging from the family tree.

Now I had delved into family in the Life & Times story, but it was just one of the motifs in a long, arcing chronicle of the world that I had lived in—and no, I am not the protagonist even though he and I shared many experiences. With The Last Weekend of the Summer, I wanted to show a family in a much smaller environment. I wanted them to be the front and center of the story. And because I have lived so much of my life in Canada, I set it in the most Canadian setting I could think of; the cottage.

Going to the cottage with family, and extended family, should, in my opinion, be a rite of passage for any who would dare put pen to paper and write about humanity. From the multi-hour drive in bumper-to-bumper traffic in a car overloaded with all the comforts of home from home, in the swelter, with the kids getting antsy, to that moment when you arrive and unpack everything that you could not possibly need even if you were holing up for the winter, you are nothing more than a prisoner of ritual.

Of course, when it is all unpacked and put away you do get to start relaxing by the lake, but then the others arrive and before long bedlam reigns again with more unpacking, loaded commentaries about who brought what and why, fighting over fridge space, and all the other things that are like matches around touch paper.

However, usually the peace and tranquility of the great outdoors can calm the nerves and allow a fragile truce that can last through the first night of fires and marshmallows and everyone slowly drifting off to sleep, but the next morning . . . that’s when it starts to get interesting. There are never enough tire swings, or paddle boats, and some of the kids can only go out in the canoe if an older kid goes with them. The older kids—the teenagers—are far too busy being bored and hostile and, when separated from their electronic gadgetry, are only too happy to set off any and all rivalries that still exist between their parents and their aunts and uncles—and better yet; their parents’ parents.

Then it is like the approach of a thunder storm that could bang and clatter for hours; with the ominous risk of a lightening strike that could start a roaring inferno in dry undergrowth.

By the second night, alliances have been established and the tribe is divided. Everyone hopes that the uneasy peace can dampen the smoldering coals of old umbrage so easily fanned to flame by any slight new or old, real or imagined. All around the fire, strategies are contrived to include, or exclude, by the well-meaning peace-keepers and the score-settlers alike. Ah, a weekend at the cottage; a rich and fertile setting for any story to be set.

But for the sake of the story that is The Last Weekend of the Summer, there had to be more. Family skeletons had to rise from their shallow graves and haunt them all; ghosts of past misdeeds pleading for forgiveness and understanding from those who had been shaped or warped by all that had gone on before.

Now in fairytales they would have all been moved to serene resolutions and lived happily ever after, but this isn’t one of those stories. Confronted by family secrets that some had been oblivious to, and some in denial of, each had to find their own way through it all—with the help, or hindrance, of the bindings that are family ties. How did they all fare? Well, as the author, I am more than happy to have the reader decide that for themselves.

The Last Weekend of the Summer comes out in August: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1611882575

And in the meantime, I will be writing a few blog posts on family—for better or worse.

You can read them at: http://peterdamienmurphy.blogspot.com/

Or my website: http://peterdmurphy.com/

Me, my younger self, and I

There are moments when I have reason to stop daydreaming and pause to consider the greater questions in life.

It is not a very fashionable practice anymore, but I suppose I have become a bit—what you might call—old school.

There was a time when such an admission would have been too distasteful—you know, when I was young and was going to tear down all that was old and staid. We—my generation—were going to make this world a better place. The road to hell . . .

On the grand scale, I doubt I have had much impact in any of that, but on a more local level . . . sure only time will tell.

I am, now, what my younger self would have called ‘old’ and one piece of evidence that my journey has not been without progress is that I can now forgive my younger self his arrogance and vanity. After all, what is the point of youth without these things—inverted or otherwise?

Having been indoctrinated from infancy by well-meaning zealots, I struggled with the meaning and purpose of life for far too long. Who wouldn’t after being told that there is a great power above that oversees all—and that it was a power for good?

It made such little sense when all around me was Bedlamic.

That, I was told, was self-will run riot. It was our true test, they told me: overcoming the self to be part of the one spirit of the universe. To be one with our God-like nature!

That made a lot of sense when I was high but shriveled up when I had to go out among the other inmates of the planet we all call home. They told me, in words and deeds, that it was really about taking as much as you can, giving only what you had to, and to always look out for number one. After all, they told me, God helps those that help themselves.

Contradiction?

Yes, but I learned how to deal with things like that. My younger self worked on the buildings sites of London, along with the swearing Paddies, drinking our evenings away in the pubs and parks of Kilburn, with a crumpled, dog-eared copy of The Prophet in the back pocket of my jeans.

The others would make fun of me, but with a certain kindness that wasn’t their normal social currency. They, in a sad kind of way, encouraged me—if only not to become what they had become; trapped in caricature. Not that being a philosophical labourer didn’t come with its own baggage.

Add to that I was, back then, what was once called a wandering minstrel. I played guitar and sang the songs that would change everything, if only people listened to the words. They didn’t and the world went on about its way to whatever end we are designing for it.

With all that we now know about ourselves and the planet we all call home, it could become a source of dread, if you let it.

Be positive, they told me, and always look on the bright side.

Jaysus wept, said I to my younger self, are they all mad?

Now, my older self, knows that we are. We are all mad and we live in a Bedlam of our own creation.

Only we don’t admit it—that would be madness. Instead, we all stick to our agendas, personal or public. We find rationality in our tenets and our causes and we get to look down our noses at any and all who think differently. We demand that we, and those who think like us, be treated fairly while we hurl intolerance and abuse at those who don’t. We are right and everyone else is wrong. 

My older self has come to the sad realization that it has always been like this. All of our great movements; Royalism, Nationalism, Sectarianism. Secularism, Communism, Socialism, Capitalism, Genderism, all things that were to have united us in cause or purpose but, in the end, became little more than reasons to divide ourselves and render us to those who would conquer us.

But here’s the part that my older self believes is the point: none of that matters.

Life is all that we say it is. It is the bitter, sweet journey from the cradle to the grave. Full of wonder and woe and all the things in between. A test? An experience? A chance to atone for past crimes against out better natures? Why not? It makes as much sense as anything else.

Despite the challenges of the future, and the numbing nearness of our long-prophesied and catastrophic doom, my older self is accepting of our fate and strives to be no more than happy in just finding the right word, or gesture, that might help another along their way. Because, looking back, I have come to realize that my better moments came about because of the kindness of others.

And that is enough to be getting on with for today. Good luck to you all.