Getting to know . . . Daisy Chain

Mary DeMuth has written six books, three non-fiction parenting books and three novels. Daisy Chain is her third novel, the first in the Defiance Texas Trilogy.

If you know anything about Mary, you know she is one of the hardest working writers out there in the publishing industry. Always searching for new ways to market her work, so dedicated to the craft of writing that she formed her own mentoring business for writers, called upon to teach at conferences, and devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ, Mary remains humble, transparent, and enthusiastic. She’s a treasure.

Daisy Marie Chance is Jed Pepper’s best friend and future husband according to Daisy. Sharing the special bonds of young kids who come from hard home situations, these two often congregate at an abandoned church at the edge of the woods away from their neighborhood, sitting in their own pew, and talking about the here and now and the past and future. Normally, Jed walks Daisy home from their private meetings, but time is running late for Jed, and fearing his father’s physical reprimands for being tardy to dinner, he insists Daisy can walk herself home this time. Her final words to him were, “You’ll regret it.” And he did.

The story opens with Jed Pepper returning to the memory and the place 30 years later and quickly we are immersed in the very day Daisy disappears in Defiance, Texas. From Jed’s perspective, that of a 14 year old son of a preacher who beats his family into submission, we see the fun-loving, sunny-haired, wise beyond her years Daisy who dares Jed to get outside his comfort zone, who tells him his family “ain’t normal”, and who cares for her single mother who neglects her and lives a sordid lifestyle according to Jed’s father who condemns just about everyone but himself.

Having read and reviewed The Killing Tree by Rachel Keener, it’s kind of surprising to meet Jed’s father, Pastor Hap (Happy) Pepper who is very similar to the rigid Father Heron in that story. More concerned about appearances than he is about his family’s needs, Hap makes spectacles of sinners from the pulpit of his church and rules his family with his iron fist, slapping, degrading, humiliating, berating, and beating them if they contest him, disobey him, or if he construes any of their words or actions as a challenge to his authority. Jed, his little sister Sissy, and Mama live in palpable fear of Hap’s wrath which explodes like a tight coiled spring. The classic hypocrite who leads by legalism and assertions of power, he never apologizes for his punishing ways.

The search for the missing Daisy adds extra sorrows to the young Jed Pepper who blames himself for leaving her to rush home to avoid his father’s belt. Mixed in with the underlying fears about what could’ve happened to Daisy is finding out the strangeness of Daisy’s absent father turning out to be his mother’s old high school boyfriend and another source of contention between his father and mother. As the first segment of this trilogy heads toward its conclusion, we sense that Jed’s mama is becoming more defiant toward Hap and suffering more of her crippling headaches in addition to his abuse.

Layered within this woeful tale is the natural love children desire to feel for their parents regardless of ill treatment, how they hope for protection and security even when it’s rarely provided. The training to honor one’s parents collides with a tyrannical, volcanic father who spouts righteousness like a weapon but fails to deliver any of it. Hiding in the background is the coming of age from boy to young man and what it takes to accomplish this in a dysfunctional and hypocritical setting that instills a false picture of a mean, out of control, and incapable God. Throughout we witness a David and Goliath struggle building which culminates near the end.

For those writers who want to read a novel which is a clinic for application of the rules of writing, Daisy Chain should be your choice. Mary DeMuth demonstrates all of them in an illustrative, carefully written story with harsh and lovely characters, well-defined and easily conjured up in the mind’s eye. Vivid images, clever metaphors, active verbs—they’re all there in abundance—capturing the mindset of a distraught 14 year old boy and his lost love. (I couldn’t help but think of a young Mary as Daisy.)

I do have to say I did not like the finish of this first installment in the trilogy. Too abrupt and inconclusive. An author risks a setup when they begin a series, a technique that alienates readers like me. This novel didn’t feel like a setup to the one to follow as it inched its way to a realistic conclusion, but it didn’t really end this story. Instead it took us back to page one.

Readers will quickly turn the pages of this novel, meeting the best and worst Defiance, Texas, has to offer and be anxious (if not slightly miffed) to proceed to the next chapter in the next segment which is included before the study questions in this book. The story, the characters, the searing heat and sweat and bare feet . . . they’ll stay with you, lingering in your thoughts as you wait for the next book.

Father, I lift up the lovely Mary to you, the one who’s endured such pain and triumphed in you. Please continue to build her up, wrap your loving, protective arms around her, fill her with the stories you have for her to tell, and let her experience the divine expression of your love in abundance. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0310278368

Comments

[Mary DeMuth]

Thanks so much for reading and reviewing the book. I really appreciate it, Nicole.

[Nicole]

Thanks for stopping by, Mary. It was my pleasure--it's a very good novel. You did a great job with the characters and story.

[Sally Bradley]

Nicole, I feel the same way about the ending.

[Nicole]

Sally, it seems like their are two (maybe more) styles for writing a series: those that end in cliffhangers and those that conclude but leave a longing for more of the story. I don't know if you read Kristen Heitzmann's series Secrets, Unforgotten, and Echoes, but, for me, these were the perfect series. Each complete stories hinting at the possiblility for more of them. Perfect.
I thought this story was going to conclude as I read it even though I knew it was a series, but it just flat took me back to page one, and I was disappointed. I think there is a better way than this to get the reader ready for the next one in the series.