Auspicious Beginnings and Leave It at That

If you were to write a novel based on family lore, which feature or incident would you focus on?

I would write a novel depicting the love stories of both my maternal grandparents and my paternal grandparents in parallel, narrating as “myself,” their granddaughter, but pretending to be omniscient so that I could include internal access.  The chapters would alternate between the two couples, and the epilogue would be some snapshot of my own life, since my existence reflects their continuing legacy.  Also, I would choose to end the novel this way in order to avoid the alternative—an account of “Where They Are Now”—because both marriages have gone a bit downhill, to be honest, and I would prefer to fabricate epic romances.

My mother’s parents still share a house, but from what I have heard, their relationship consists mainly of constant petty bickering and its foundation is mutual strength of habit.  However, it boasts a cinematic inception: She was a sought-after beauty, pursued by hordes of suitors whose letters, in her impervious, Diana-esque chastity, she used to throw in the trash unopened.  He was arrogant and egotistical but extremely intelligent and passionate.  His love letter to her arrived penned in his own blood, and threatened suicide if she were to reject his overtures.  The desperate bid succeeded: they were married and had three children.

My father’s parents are rather odd birds at this point.  Late in life, his mother largely abandoned her family and former “material” pursuits in order to embark on a quest to find herself through Zen Buddhism, hopping from temple to temple, residing alternately in New Jersey, Hawaii, and Taiwan.  In her absence his father wallowed in more temporal forms of solace, e.g. Chinese soap operas, the oblivion of more daily naps than any self-respecting puppy would permit himself, and his favorite Chinese foods.  However, I think that I should neatly snip my narrative before I got to that whole dreary grappling-with-mortality bit.  Instead, I would focus on the equally cinematic beginnings of their romance, which weave in elements of political intrigue and international flight.  She was from Mainland China and not considered “good enough” in terms of social class by his parents, who were members of the Taiwanese elite, but he defied their wishes in order to marry her.  I am extremely fuzzy on the following details, but I believe his ties to the Taiwanese military then obliged the couple to flee to Libya as political refugees, where they started a family.  A few years after that, [insert dramatic incident] occurred, leading them to relocate once again, this time to New Jersey.  Which is where—were I to tell their story—I should effectively plaster, “And they lived happily ever after,” over the screen and cue credits.

I am not, in fact, particularly close to any of my grandparents and rarely see them.  They have never told me any of these tales themselves; I have them all second-hand from my parents.  The reason why I would choose to write about my grandparents is simply that I adore love stories, and both of theirs have much more dramatic potential than my parents’ fairly conventional “we-met-in-college” storyline.  Also, I could exploit the whole nostalgia-for-a-bygone-era aspect.