I am fortunate in many ways to have had the father I did. He grew up in a rural area, became an electrical engineer, and, during WW II, was a naval aviator. He could fix anything, build anything and took pleasure in what were the techno hobbies of the 50s such as operating a Ham radio and building model airplanes. I didn’t realize it at the time, but one of the things I learned from him was to be comfortable with scientific and technical stuff. This came in handy later, because, although I got my degree in history, I ended up working in the biotechnology industry, translating all those amazing genetic engineering discoveries into prose lay people could understand. Thanks to Dad, I enjoyed a career right smack in the thick of an emerging new technology. Similarly, Farrah’s dad opened the door for her to understand and embrace Internet technology.
It is interesting to ponder what we are paying forward for today’s children. What tools are we giving them that will turn out to be the things that really matter to them as adults? Despite all the progress, I am concerned that many kids, and especially many girls, are still ‘scared’ of science, and are not getting enough encouragement and help to overcome baseless fears and pursue technical careers that are vital to our economy.
My novel, DEED SO, deals with gender and equality issues. It is the coming-of-age story of a girl who lives in a small town during a period of racial unrest and escalating war abroad. The women of my father’s generation who are portrayed in the book, worked during WW II, but gave up their jobs when the men came home and became the housewives of the 50s and 60s. Haddie, the heroine of DEED SO, is fascinated at their acquiescence, because she wants more from life.
DEED SO is a reflection on the culture and events that made the Boomers who they are as a generation. The story lays bare the issues and conflicts that shaped their thinking, and helps explain why equal opportunity and access were such important themes for Boomers.
Now, Boomers are reaching that stage in life where you reflect on what your contributions have been, and also what mistakes you have made. We certainly have broken a lot of glass ceilings. In the process, though, I worry that we have not done as good a job of passing along self-reliance and prudence, two cultural pillars that were very important to the Greatest Generation, my father’s peers and the ‘adults’ portrayed in the fictional world of DEED SO. If you have thoughts on the Boomer legacy, I hope you will post a comment.
On a lighter note, I also write mysteries, and, in A POINTED DEATH, I created a cast of characters that include many women who work in exciting high tech jobs. One of my missions as an author is to encourage more writers to invent protagonists who are truly empowered women excelling in cutting edge industries. How about a female protagonist who works on the iPad product development team at Apple? I say, why not!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR…Kath Russell is the mystery series pen name for Katharine A. Russell. Russell enjoyed over thirty-five years in marketing and communications management in the biotechnology industry. She was an executive with Cetus Corporation, one of the first genetic engineering companies. Russell also was president of Russell-Welsh Strategic Life Science Communications, Inc., and founder and chief executive officer of an ecommerce company offering services for mature companion animals and veterinarians. Russell received her bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, her master’s degree in journalism from Boston University, her master’s of business administration from the Kellogg School of Management, and earned her certificate in creative writing from the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.
It is 1962, and Agnes Hayden Bashford, Haddie, a brainy Southern teen from a tradition-bound family, dreams of breaking free from suffocating expectations placed on girls and from Wicomico Corners. She vows to escape to the exhilarating world beyond its narrow borders, like her handsome, older friend Gideon Albright who is going to Vietnam. A series of shocking incidents brings the outside world crashing down on her peaceful village, exposing long-buried family secrets and setting Haddie on a collision course with an unstable firebrand who will have to silence her to protect his identity. Haddie witnesses the fatal shooting of a black teen by a white down-on-his-luck farmer trying to protect his retarded son. The resulting murder trial attracts outside agitators and political aspirants, and pits townspeople against each other. Excited about being a witness in the trial, Haddie sees her moment of notoriety dissolve into frustration and discomfort and tragedy claim the people around her. The racially-charged case exposes civic fault lines and secrets within Haddie’s own family, shattering her comfortable home life, and unleashes an arsonist who terrorizes the community by night. In Deed So, a young girl and an entire town lose their innocence in the last year of innocence, the year before the Kennedy assassination, the civil rights struggle, feminist activism and the Vietnam War changed America forever.
